hadn’t meant to do it. Of course he hadn’t. Alessandro didn’t know what madness had claimed him as he leaned forward and kissed the back of Mia’s neck. Everything about the moment felt exquisitely sensual, as if a honeyed drug was stealing through his veins, obliterating all rational thought, everything but this. Her.
And he didn’t even care.
He felt Mia’s instant and overwhelming response, her body shuddering again under his touch, and he moved his lips lower, kissing each knob of her spine in turn, letting his lips linger on her silky skin.
The moonlight turned her ivory skin to lambent silver; she was pale, a perfect goddess, like an ancient marble statue, the paragon of classical beauty. He continued to kiss his way down her spine, feeling Mia tremble beneath his feather-light touch. Then he reached the base of her spine and he fell to his knees, anchoring her hips with his hands, as he kissed the small of her back, a place he hadn’t even considered sensual or enflaming until this moment, when it was, utterly.
‘Alessandro…’ The name was drawn from her lips in a desperate plea as the unzipped gown slid from her hips and pooled around her feet, leaving her completely bare. She started to turn and Alessandro rose, pulling her into his arms as his mouth came down hard and hungry and demanding on hers. She responded to the kiss with a frenzied passion of her own as they stumbled backward together, lips locked, hands roving greedily, until they hit Henry Dillard’s desk.
Alessandro hoisted her on top of it, stepping between her thighs, as he deepened the kiss. He couldn’t get enough of her. He didn’t want to. All he wanted was more—more of this, and more of her.
He broke the kiss only to kiss her elsewhere, wanting to claim all her body for his own—her small, high breasts, her tiny waist, her endless legs. Mia’s head fell back, her breath coming in desperate pants, as Alessandro explored every inch of her and still felt as if he hadn’t had enough, a thirst and craving welling up inside him that could never be slaked.
He ran his hand from the delicate bones of her ankle up her calf, along her inner thigh, before his fingers found the heart of her and she tensed under his touch, her breath hitching as he deftly stroked her.
‘Alessandro…’ Another plea, and one he answered with his sure caress.
But even that wasn’t enough; it wasn’t enough when she surrendered entirely to his touch, her voice a broken, shuddering cry. He needed to possess her fully, to make her his own.
Still, one last shred of sanity made him hesitate. ‘Mia, are you sure…?’ His voice was low, ragged, but certain. He had to know that she wanted this as much as he did.
Her eyes fluttered open, the look in them both dazed and sated as she nodded, her pulse hammering in her throat. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’
Alessandro needed no further encouragement. He spread her thighs wider as he fumbled with his own clothes. Then seconds, but what felt like an eternity, later he thrust inside her, groaning with the pleasure of it.
Mia let out a startled gasp and Alessandro stilled, shock drenching him in icy waves. ‘Mia…’ He could barely believe what had just happened. ‘Mia, are you…’ he could barely manage to say the words ‘…a virgin?’
She let out a choked laugh, her fingernails digging into his shoulders as she anchored him in place. ‘I was.’
Alessandro swore. ‘You…’ He bit off what he’d been going to say.
You should have told me. I should have known. I never would have…
He’d asked, after all. He’d asked her if she was sure. Now, his body aching and still thundering with need, he started to withdraw.
‘No. Don’t.’ Mia clutched his shoulders as she wriggled into position underneath him. ‘I’m all right.’ She shifted again, her body opening beneath him, inviting him in further, and as Alessandro felt her welcoming warmth he knew he was a lost man. He started to move, and Mia gave a breathy sigh of pleasure as she started to match his rhythm.
The regret and uncertainty he’d felt fell away like a mist as they moved together, climbing higher and higher, until they both reached that dazzling apex, and Alessandro let out a shudder of sated pleasure as he pulled her even closer to him, her body wrapping around and enfolding his. He could feel her heart thudding against his own, and he knew he’d never been as close to another person as this.
Seconds ticked by and neither of them spoke or moved. Alessandro had the strange and unsettling feeling that he didn’t want to move; he didn’t want this to end. He had never, ever felt that way before after being with a woman.
Yet of course he had to, and so did Mia, and after another few soul-shaking seconds she started to pull away. Alessandro let her go, tidying himself up as Mia eased off the desk. Her head was bent, her face averted as she walked quickly to her clothes and pulled them on. Alessandro saw that her fingers trembled as she buttoned the now crumpled white blouse he’d admired earlier that day, in what felt like a lifetime ago.
Alessandro knew he should say something, but he had no idea what. Now that the haze of incredible pleasure was no longer clouding his mind, he was realising what an enormous, idiotic mistake he’d just made. Mia James was his PA, and he’d had her on his desk like a…like a…
No. He could barely believe this had happened. This never happened to him, because he never let it. He was too self-controlled, too contained, too certain of what he wanted, to let something as stupid as desire cloud his mind and guide his actions, even for a few seconds.
And yet that was precisely what had just happened. He could scarcely credit it, and yet it had. It had.
Mia had finished dressing and she stood there, her handbag clutched to her chest, her hair in tangles about her pale face, her eyes wide and dazed.
‘I should go.’ Her voice was a whisper, and guilty regret lashed him like a whip, which made him, unreasonably he knew, feel angry.
‘You should have told me you were a virgin.’
Her already wide eyes widened even further, looking huge in her face. ‘Would it have mattered?’
‘Yes. I’m not accustomed to…’ Alessandro gestured to the desk, unwilling to put it into words, furious with himself as well as with Mia. What had she been thinking? What had he?
‘Well, obviously neither am I.’ Her voice was grim, humourless. ‘Let’s just say the moment got the better of us, and move past it, shall we?’
He stared at her, surprised and a little discomfited that she was offering so pragmatic an approach, and the one he would have suggested but now oddly resented. Minutes before they’d been twined around each other like…but, no. He wasn’t going to think about that. Mia was right. They needed to move past this—immediately.
‘Yes.’ His voice was tight. ‘Yes, that is exactly what we shall do.’
Mia nodded, still looking grim, and Alessandro felt the need to gain control of the situation; somehow it had slipped entirely out of his hands, and he needed to come to grips with it. He needed to remind himself what kind of man he was, and it most certainly wasn’t one who unzipped a woman’s dress and then ended up having her over
