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She got up from the table, suddenly aware that her head was feeling as if there was a very slight swirl inside it. Just how much of that gorgeous champagne had she drunk? she wondered. It seemed to be fizzing in her veins, making her feel breathless, weightless. As if she were floating in a blissful haze. But she didn’t care. How could she? An evening like this—something out of fairyland—would never come again!
With a little contented sigh she sank down on the sofa, the dessert wine glass in her hand, her light cotton skirt billowing around her.
Anatole came and sat down beside her. ‘Time to relax,’ he said genially, flicking on the TV with a remote.
He hefted his feet up onto the coffee table, disposing of his tie over the back of the sofa. He wanted to be totally comfortable. The mix of champagne and sweet wine was creaming pleasantly in his veins. He hoped it was doing so in Tia, as well, allowing her to enjoy the rest of the evening with him before he took himself off to his hotel.
Idly, he wondered whether he should phone and tell them to expect him, but then he decided not to bother. Instead he amused himself by channel-surfing until he chanced upon a channel that made his unexpected guest exclaim, ‘Oh, I love this movie!’
It was a rom-com, perfectly watchable, and he was happy to do so. Happy to see Tia curl her bare feet under her skirt on the sofa and lean back into the cushions, her eyes on the screen.
At what point, Anatole wondered as he topped up her glass again, had he moved closer to her? At what point, as he’d stretched and flexed his legs, had he also stretched and flexed his arms, so that one of them was now resting along the back of the sofa, his fingertips grazing the top of her shoulder?
At what point had his fingers started idly playing with the now dry silky-soft pale curls around her neck?
At what point had he accepted that he had no desire—none whatsoever—to go anywhere else tonight?
And all the caution and the warnings sounding in his head, in what remained of his conscience, were falling on ears that were totally, profoundly deaf...
The film came to its sentimental end, with the hero sweeping the heroine up into his arms, lavishing an extravagant kiss upon her upturned face, and the music soared into the credits. A huge sigh of satisfaction was breathed from Tia, and she set down her now empty glass, turning back towards Anatole.
Emotion was coursing through her, mingling with the champagne and with that deliciously sweet wine she’d been drinking, with the gorgeous food she’d eaten—the best she’d ever tasted—all set off by candles and soft music and with her very own prince to keep her company.
It was foaming in her bloodstream, shining from her eyes. The rom-com they’d watched was one of her favourites, sighed over many times, but this—this now, here, right now—with her very own gorgeous, incredibly handsome man sitting beside her, oh, so tantalisingly close, was real! No fairytale, no fantasy—real. She’d never been this physically close to a man before—let alone a man like this! A man who could make fairytales come true...
And she knew how fairytales culminated! With the hero kissing the heroine...
Excitement, wonder—hope—filled her, and her eyes were shining like stars as she gazed up into the face of this glorious, gorgeous man who represented to her everything she had ever longed for, dreamt of, yearned for.
The man who was looking down at her, his dark eyes lustrous, his lashes long and lush, his sculpted mouth so beautiful, so sensual—
She felt a little thrill just thinking of it, her breath catching, her eyes widening as she looked up to his.
Anatole looked down at her, seeing the loveliness of her face, of the loose, long pale hair waving like silk over her slender shoulders, seeing how the sweet mounds of her breasts were pressed against the contours of her cotton tee shirt, how her soft tender lips were parted, how her celestial blue eyes were wide, gazing at him with an expression that told him exactly what she wanted.
For one long, endless moment he stayed motionless, while a million conflicting thoughts battled in his head over what he should do next. What he should do versus what he wanted to do.
Yet still he held back, knowing that what he wanted so badly to do he should not. He should instead pull back, make some gesture of withdrawal from her, get up, get to his feet, increase the distance between them. Because if he didn’t right now, then—
Her hand lifted, almost quivering, and with trembling fingers she let the delicate tips touch his jaw, feather-light, scarcely making contact, as if she hardly dared believe that this was what she was doing. She said his name. Breathed it. Her eyes were pools of longing. Her lips were parted, eyes half closed now. Waiting—yearning... For him.
And Anatole lost it. Lost all remaining shreds of conscience or consciousness.
He leaned towards her. The hand behind her head grazed her nape, his other hand slid along her cheek, his fingers gentle in her hair, cupping her face. Her eyes were wide, like saucers, and in them starlight shone like beacons, drawing him into her, into doing what she so blazingly wanted him to do.
His eyes washed over her, his pulse quickening. She was so lovely. And she so wanted him to kiss her... He could see it in her eyes, in her parted lips, in the quivering pulse in her delicate white throat.
His lashes swept down over his eyes as his mouth touched hers, soft as velvet, tasting the sweet wine on her lips, the warmth of her mouth as he opened it to his questing silken touch. He heard her give a little moan, deep in her throat, and he felt his own pulse surge, arousal spearing within him.
She was so soft to kiss, and he deepened his kiss automatically, instinctively, his hand sliding down over the curve of her shoulder, turning her towards him as he leant into her, drawing her to him, drawing her across him, so that her hand now braced itself against the hard wall of his chest, so that one slender thigh was against his.
He heard her moan again and it quickened his arousal. He said her name, told her how sweet she was, how very lovely. If he spoke in Greek he didn’t realise it—didn’t realise anything except that the wine was coursing in his bloodstream, recklessness was heady in his smitten synapses, and in his arms was a woman he desired.
Who desired him.
Because that was what her tender, lissom body was telling him—that was what the sudden engorgement of her breasts was showing him in the cresting of her nipples that were somehow beneath the palm of his hand.
Without realisation, she was winding her hand around his waist. He laid her back across his lap, half supported on his arm as he kissed her still, one hand palming her swelling breast until she moaned, eyes closed, her face filled with an expression of bliss he would have had to be blind not to see. He lifted his mouth from hers, let his eyes feast on her a moment, before his mouth descended yet again to graze on the line of her cheekbones, to nip at the tender lobes of her ears.
He let his hand slip reluctantly from her breast and then slide languorously along her flank to rest on her thigh, to smooth away the light cotton of her skirt until his hand found the bare skin beneath. To stroke and to caress and to hear her moan again, to feel her thigh strain against him—feel, too, his own body surge to full arousal.
Desire flamed in him...strong, impossible to resist...
And yet he must. This was too fast, too intense. He was letting his overpowering desire for her carry him away and he must draw back.
Heart pounding, he set her aside.
‘Tia—’ His voice was broken, his hand raised as if to ward her off. To hold himself back from her.
He saw her face fill with anguish. It caught at him like a blow.
‘Don’t...don’t you want me?’ There was dismay in her voice, which was a muted whisper.
He gave a groan. ‘Tia—I mustn’t. This isn’t right. I can’t take advantage of you like this!’
Immediately she cried out, ‘But you aren’t! Oh, please, please don’t tell me you don’t want me! I couldn’t bear it!’
Her hand flew to her mouth and her look of anguish intensified. Her breathing was fast and breathless and she felt bereft—lost and abandoned.
He caught her face between his hands. ‘Tia—I want you very, very much, but—’
But there’s more than one bedroom in this apartment and we have to be in separate bedrooms tonight—we just have to be! Because anything else would be...would be...
Her face had lit like a beacon again. ‘Please...please!’ she begged. Her face worked. ‘This whole evening with you has been incredible! Fantastic! Wonderful! And now...with you...it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced in all my life! You are like no one I’ve ever met! I’ll never meet anyone else like you again, and this...all this...’
She gestured at the room, softly lit with table lamps, at the candles still on the dining table, the empty bottle of champagne, the glow of the lights on the terrace beyond.
‘All this will never happen to me again!’ She bit her lip, mouth quivering. ‘I want this so much,’ she said huskily, her eyes pleading with him, her hand fastening on his strong arm as if she might draw him back to her again. ‘Please,’ she begged again. ‘Please don’t turn me away—please!’
And yet again Anatole lost it.
Unable to resist what he did not want to resist, what he could not bear to resist, he swept her back up to him, his mouth descending to taste again the honeyed sweetness of her mouth which opened to his instantly, eagerly...hungrily.
She wants this—she wants this as much as I do. And, however briefly we have known each other, my desire for her is overpowering. And so is hers for me. And because of that...
Because of that, with a rasp deep in his throat, he hefted to his feet, holding her in his arms, his hand sweeping under her knees to cradle her against him as he carried her away.
Away not to the guest room but to his own master suite, where he ripped back the bedcovers to lay her gently upon cool sheets. She was gazing up at him, blindness in her eyes, her pupils flared, lips bee-stung, breasts straining against the moulding of the cotton tee.
He wanted it gone. Wanted all her clothes gone, and all his—wanted no barriers between himself and this lovely woman he wanted now...right now...
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