once more through her senses. Richard. How was it that he had never elicited anywhere near such a physical response in her as her dream lover? Had it really been all her fault?
And then nothing mattered—not Richard, or her questions or her self-doubts. Her heart was beating so loudly now, her pulse a sensual drumbeat that turned to a throb deep down inside and drowned out such plaguing thoughts. If her dream lover could make her feel so good, so real, even just for the moment, then who cared? Not her. She just wanted to enjoy for as long as it lasted.
Sound outside her heartbeat interrupted her thoughts— a voice, and words that made no sense, tumbling together into fairy tales and nonsense—and then all was silent apart from her groan as she felt his tongue circle her nipple, sending flaming arrows deep down inside. From somewhere in the passion-blinded recesses of her mind it occurred to her: her dream lover had never spoken before, not with words.
Fear shimmied up her spine as she pushed away at the remnants of sleep, still at war with herself, torn between not wanting to do anything to banish her dream lover, and yet knowing that this time was different—that tonight something was majorly out of step.
Jagged lightning hastened her ascent, and she opened her eyes to a booming roll of thunder that made the building shake around her. Yet it was nothing compared to the thunderclap of finding his dark head at her breast.
It wasn’t a dream! The sensual web that had wound itself around her while she’d slept was no figment of her imagination, her arousal no fantasy. This man—and what he was doing to her—was shockingly real.
She cried out something garbled and panicked, jerking herself away, her hands reaching for the bed clothes and dragging them higher.
‘Good morning, Goldilocks, I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.’ His voice soothed, even as what felt like a steel band clamped around her, anchoring her to the bed. But she couldn’t have moved a muscle, even if she’d tried, not when another bolt of lightning lit up the room and the face of her dream lover with it.
A moment of frozen shock turned into a chill of abject horror, for even after the lightning had passed and the room plunged back into darkness, the lines and planes of the face hovering close remained boldly etched in her mind’s eye. The lines and planes of a face she knew only too well.
‘Dante!’
The very man with the power of life and death over the hotel. The very man she’d sworn to fight tooth and nail to ensure he wouldn’t destroy this property and the livelihoods of all who worked within it.
It hadn’t been a dream.
And the reality was far, far worse.
It was a nightmare.
He gave what looked in the gloom like a predatory smile, full of dark meaning and sinful intent, and she felt her insides lurch. He touched the back of the fingers of one hand to her cheek and against her better judgement it was all she could do not to lean into his electric touch. ‘I never would have guessed,’ he said cryptically, before unhooking the arm holding her prisoner and reaching for something on the bedside table. The spell broken, Mackenzi took the opportunity to back away across the mattress, clutching the bed clothes to breasts still too-acutely tingling after his tongue’s ministrations. She squeezed her eyes shut. Oh God, that had been Dante Carrazzo’s tongue!
‘I…I should be going,’ she stammered, still trying to come to terms with what he was doing here so early, and cursing herself for taking the easy option of making use of his vacant room rather than dragging a pull-out bed to the laundry. But even harder to come to terms with was how any man, least of all him, could have had that effect on her and made her feel so alive, so aroused.
And then she heard the rip of foil and he turned back with something in his hands, and she discovered in a rush of awareness something new about her late-night visitor— that, from what little light there was in the room, the gleam of his muscled torso told her he was, like her, completely and utterly naked. Her gaze moved lower and she swallowed, her tongue tied, her brain scrambled, forgetting everything in the rush of hormones that flooded her system.
Hormones she wasn’t supposed to have.
Hormones that wanted to leap from her skin when she watched in fascination as he rolled the condom along his long length. It was dark in the room, but even the shadows couldn’t disguise the dimensions being sheathed. How would that feel inside her? she wondered dry-mouthed as every bit of moisture in her body headed south. If indeed it were possible. And suddenly, inexplicably, insanely, she wanted more than anything to find out.
‘You don’t want to leave now,’ he assured her, taking advantage of her confusion when he’d finished his task to gather her in his arms, and leaving her to wonder whether now he’d taken to reading her mind. ‘Not when we’re only just getting to the main event.’
Even if she’d wanted to, she doubted she could have moved. Her body acted of its own volition, resisting any and all attempts to protect herself from his advances—especially when he dipped his head towards her breasts, his lips latching onto a nipple. She gasped, giving into temptation while battling to locate logical thought. This is a bad idea, she seemed to register from somewhere under the battery of sensations that accompanied his suckling. A very bad idea. But for the life of her she couldn’t work out why.
Not such a bad idea after all, another sinful voice crooned, if finally you get to experience what Richard’s been telling you you’re incapable of. And where’s the danger? the voice argued. It’s dark, he’ll be asleep in five minutes, and he’ll never even know it’s you.
He’ll never know it’s you.
The words echoed in her head like a mantra and she tried to keep hold of it, to believe it. She had to believe it. Because she’d reached the point of no return. Now there was no going back, no escape, even if she wanted to. She didn’t want to.
His hand ran down her side, tracing the curve of her hip and the outside line of her leg, and she shuddered into his touch. Then he turned at her knee and started the slow, sensual trip back along the inside. She pressed her head back into the bed. Had anyone ever died of anticipation? When his hand found her curls and lingered there, combing her lazily with his fingers, she could believe it. When he parted her and found that tightly wired centre of her existence, jolting her like an electric shock, she could almost believe she had.
‘Please,’ she urged, not sure what she was asking for, just that it be mercifully quick.
His heated mouth moved to her throat, nuzzling below her ear and turning her spine along with her defences to liquid. So it was no wonder that her legs fell open when he levered himself up and positioned himself between them.
Later she knew she would be shocked by her complicity, but what choice did she have? If only it didn’t feel so good, she told herself. If only it didn’t feel so right. But how could she fight what felt so essentially good? And how could she fight what seemed so essential?
It was as if her dream lover had come to life and had stayed to beckon her on, even after she’d opened her eyes. It was as if her every wish for sexual gratification had come true. She was too far gone, too fuelled by a sensuous dream that had primed her senses to within a fraction of release, her body already hell-bent on a course that demanded completion, a completion drawing deliciously closer by the second.
