they’d got back to the hotel an unspoken inevitability had vibrated between them, intensifying the closer they’d got to her room. Once inside, as if to stave it off, as if she could save herself from the burning flames, Lucy had said breathlessly, ‘Wait … what is this now? What are we?’
Ari had rested back against the door, hands behind him, those lean hips in the low-slung jeans making Lucy’s mouth dry and her head ache with the effort it took not to look down.
‘We are two consenting adults, exploring a strong mutual attraction, and this is … the second time we make love.’
Heat had exploded all around her. He’d pushed off the door and come towards her. Lucy had put out a hand, as if that could stop him, and had watched as he’d nonchalantly stripped off his T-shirt.
She’d swallowed. ‘But … what about us … working together? How can we do this …?’
He’d caught up with her effortlessly and pulled her into him, tight. She had felt the bulge of his arousal pressing against his jeans, pressing just above the apex of her thighs, and her legs had nearly buckled.
He’d bent his head and whispered at the corner of her mouth, ‘This is how we do this …’
Things had escalated swiftly. Clothes pulled and yanked, they’d stumbled and staggered towards the bed, Lucy falling back into the softness, somehow naked except for her underwear.
She’d watched as Ari yanked down his jeans and briefs in one go. She’d gazed at him in all his bronzed, aroused glory, she’d realised in that moment that ever since that day she’d bumped into him in the lift this image had been hidden deep in the recesses of her darkest fantasies. A fantasy she never might have acknowledged if this man hadn’t wanted her too.
Was that why he’d got under her skin so thoroughly from the start? The revelation sent her pulse soaring, pounding through her veins and under her skin, even now, as she sat on the chair with her legs tight together and Parnassus’ own assistant sitting just feet away.
Even that couldn’t halt the images, though. Ari had come towards her like an avenging god and pushed her legs apart, where they dangled over the bed. On two hands he’d rested over her. After looking down at her for an intensely long moment, he’d pushed down one bra strap and then the other, and then pulled down the cups of her black bra so that her breasts were exposed, upthrust by the confining underwire.
When he’d bent his head to blow softly Lucy had groaned deep in her throat, in between her legs a deep, endless ache. When his tongue had flicked out and teasingly licked around the rapidly hardening peak of one breast she’d arched her back, willing him to suck it deep, like he had before.
When he hadn’t, she’d looked at him, felt sweat breaking out on her brow. He’d smiled devilishly, and she’d cursed him silently, her eyes flashing in a mute appeal.
He’d shifted her back onto the bed and with far too practised ease managed to dispense with her bra. His big hands on her thighs had held her apart. He’d looked at her with such desirous intensity she’d felt trepidation lick through her, feeling that she had to be imagining this.
She’d spoken huskily, and winced now at the memory. ‘How can you … how can you find me attractive? I’m not like … I’m too big … I’m plump …’
He’d merely hooked fingers into the side of her pants, said throatily, ‘You’re perfect …’ and started to pull them down, dropping them summarily on the floor. He’d stood again, blatantly aroused, making a mockery of her words. Making her feel as if she was all woman and the only woman for him.
He’d bent over her and she’d felt his erection teasing her, hot and hard against her desire-drenched sex. She’d felt so wanton, but had bitten her lip and forced herself not to move her hips towards him as she’d wanted to do so very badly.
Lying right over her, so she could feel his chest against her, he’d stretched her arms above her head, the movement causing her breasts to rise as if offered to him like succulent desserts.
Holding her hands captive with one of his much larger ones, he’d trailed his other hand down the side of her body, teasing the side of one breast, and whispered in her ear, ‘You are quite simply the pure embodiment of my every fantasy of what the perfect feminine form is … I didn’t know it till I saw you, and now I can see nothing else …’
Lucy’s heart had stopped altogether. She’d searched his eyes as he’d lifted back and looked down, so dark and hot they’d scorched her alive.
‘You … really mean that?’
Lucy hoped desperately now that she hadn’t sounded as vulnerable as she’d felt in that moment.
In answer Ari had bent his head and laved one of her nipples with his mouth and tongue, before sucking it deep, causing her back to arch again helplessly.
Releasing her hands for only a second while he’d put on protection, he’d come back and captured them high again. Lucy’s hips had bucked of their own volition.
He’d then slid into her, inch by torturous inch, and when he was in as far as he could go, when she didn’t know where she started or he ended, he’d leant close to her mouth and kissed her deeply, before saying, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear, ‘Yes … I really mean it.’
And then, with slow, deep thrusts which built and built to a stunning crescendo—
The door in front of Lucy opened suddenly, and she jumped up at the same time as Parnsassus’ assistant, a guilty flush staining her cheeks, breathing as if she’d just been running. A pulse throbbed between her legs and she was caught by a pair of glittering green eyes.
She saw Ari smile sardonically, as if he knew exactly what she’d just been thinking about, and Lucy flushed even redder. He strolled over and took the file she was holding out of her hands, his fingers caressing hers underneath for a lingering moment, making her pulse beat even faster.
Lucy nearly groaned out loud, and then he said sotto voce, ‘Have Helios bring the car round. We’ll be out of here in less than ten minutes … I’ll tell Parnassus we can work from my office for the rest of the afternoon.’
Lucy just nodded, not capable of much else, and certainly not capable of anything like work. She felt feverish, distracted, more elated than she’d ever felt, and knew that right now she had neither the strength of will nor the inclination to resist this man.
‘We’ve been invited to my father’s house for dinner on Friday night.’
‘You mean you’ve been invited for dinner.’ Lucy shuddered inwardly, she didn’t fool herself for a second in thinking that Helen Levakis had included her in that cosy little invitation.
Ari shook his head and marvelled at this woman in front of him. They were having a private dinner in her bedroom at the hotel, late in the evening. She looked so beautiful in just a bathrobe, with her dark hair spread around her shoulders, not a scrap of make-up, that delicious cleavage just visible in the gap of her robe. When he thought of how they’d barely made it back to the office the afternoon before—He stopped his rampant mind. He was far too susceptible to this woman. And, worryingly, he didn’t feel at all complacent or triumphant about the fact that he’d got her into bed. If anything he just felt a growing sense of hunger. The fact that
