answer. ‘What is it? Have you changed your mind about tonight? Do you want to go back on this—renege on what we agreed?’
Did she?
Did she want to back out of the deal? Was that what she wanted?
They were the questions Skye had been asking herself ever since they’d come upstairs. No—before that. The truth was that her courage and conviction had been seeping away from the moment that she had agreed to stay with him.
It was obvious that she’d shocked him to the core with her blunt announcement that if she stayed then he must never ask her her full name, and never give her his.
She’d thought that he was going to walk away when she’d said that. Certainly his expression had seemed to promise that he was going to reject her outrageous proposition out of hand. His whole face had closed off, shutters seeming to come down behind the brilliant black eyes, until every one of his features had appeared to be carved in cold, unyielding marble.
But then he had blinked once, very slowly, and nodded his dark head.
‘No,’ she said now, miserably aware of the way that her own inner tension made her voice sound tight and hard, coldly distant. ‘No, I’m not reneging on anything. It’s just…’
Just that I’m no good at this.
The words were burning on her tongue, but she swallowed them back hastily, closing her eyes against the terrible anxiety she was feeling. She couldn’t say them, not here, not now, not in this situation. Her stomach muscles were tying themselves into tight, painful knots, twisting each nerve harder and harder with every heartbeat.
‘Just what?’
His voice sounded disturbingly close and when her eyes flew open again it was to find that he had taken several long strides forward. He was standing right in front of her, so near that if she just lifted her hand she could touch him without even stretching out her fingers.
And she wanted to touch him. The tips of her fingers tingled with the remembrance of the way his skin, his hair had felt to their touch. Her palms felt again the heat of the muscles beneath his shirt, sensed the thudding of his heart under the strong bones of his chest.
If she slicked her tongue along her lips, she could still taste him, clean, musky, intensely masculine, making her heart skip a beat. And she wanted that taste, those sensations all over again. She wanted to lose herself in that wonderful, sizzling feeling that flooded her senses, swamping her mind and leaving her incapable of thought, knowing only need.
She wanted this man.
‘Just what?’ he prompted again, more roughly this time.
I want you to hold me—to make me forget…
‘Just that I wish you would kiss me again.’
‘Oh, that!’
It was edged with laughter, threaded through with a knowing triumph.
‘You only had to ask.’
He was already moving forward, taking her in his arms, drawing her close to him with the confidence of a man who was sure of his appeal; who had no doubt that he was wanted.
‘So tell me, sweetheart…’
A caressing hand slid under her chin, lifting her face to his, and his glittering black eyes locked with her cloudy grey ones, holding her gaze, keeping her so still that even her heartbeat seemed to freeze.
‘Where shall I kiss you? Here?’
The warm pressure of his mouth on her forehead was like a butterfly landing, light, delicate, there and gone again so swiftly that she barely even noticed it was there until she felt its loss. And when she did, her lips parted on a sigh of melancholy delight.
‘Or here…?’
This time he caressed her cheek, dropping a kiss just below her temple, on the left and then again on the right, making her breathing deepen, her senses start to stir.
‘Or perhaps here…?’
Softly, deliberately, he kissed her eyes shut, his lips lingering on the lids just long enough to seal them closed. At least, that was the way it felt to Skye, who found herself locked into a world of sensual darkness where every other sense seemed heightened and sharply sensitised to everything about him.
She could hear each breath he took, low and steady, matching the beat of his heart. His scent was on the air around her, that warm, clean, male essence, subtly blended with the tang of lime and spice in his cologne. When he took her hands in his, the heat seared across her skin like an electric current making her fingers curl in instant response, her breath catch sharply in her throat.
And it was all happening again.
She was melting inside, all the tension seeping out of her body so that she almost expected to see it pool on the floor at her feet. The honeyed pulse of desire was starting through her veins once more, sending the waves of yearning along the path of every nerve and setting them alight with need.
‘That will do for a start,’ she managed, amazed at her own boldness. A daring that was bolstered by the darkness behind her closed lids.
She couldn’t see the man who held her, couldn’t look into the darkness of his eyes and read anything—or nothing—from them. She could only feel, enclosed in her own private, secret world of sensations she had never known before, but now wanted to experience so much more.
She wanted to plunge into them like a swimmer diving straight into the deepest pool, letting the waters crash over her head and submerge her completely. Wanted to know it all. Wanted to snatch at things greedily and hungrily, grabbing them to her and swallowing them whole.
But Anton seemed determined to take things slowly. When she made a tiny movement of impatience he hushed her softly, smoothing the sound from her lips with a gentle finger.
‘Not so fast, my lovely. We have all night.’
All night…
It had a wonderful sound. A sound that seemed to promise hours that would stretch out and out in a never-ending way, delivering pleasure for as long as she could stand it. But at the same time, Skye knew just how quickly those hours would fly by. How soon they would be over.
She had this one chance to know the sensuous delights that instinct told her were ahead of her. She couldn’t waste them.
She wouldn’t waste them. Already her body was on fire with anticipation and longing and she was trembling in his arms, grateful for the security of his hold that was all that kept her upright.
‘Anton…’
His name was a moan of need on her lips and she felt as well as heard the soft laughter that shook his powerful frame.
‘I know, sweetheart,’ he told her and the new thickness in his voice revealed only too clearly just how much he did know. ‘I know the way you’re feeling—but, believe me, this will be worth taking slowly. It will be worth waiting for. Just go with me on this—let me show you…’
He
