Sultry Nights: Mistress to the Merciless Millionaire / The Savakis Mistress / Ruthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

So now, when he halted outside her bedroom door and turned to face her, saying with a low voice, ‘Kate, I want you. But I’ll wait if I—’ It was the easiest thing in the world to step close and put a finger to his lips.

‘So have me … I’m yours.’ She couldn’t play games, couldn’t deny the need that had given her the impetus to say yes to coming here. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long.

Tiarnan emitted a guttural sound of satisfaction and pulled her in so tight against him she didn’t know if it was his heartbeat or hers she could feel thumping so loudly and heavily. His mouth seemed to hover over hers for a long moment, as if relishing the anticipation, the moment, and then, with one hand spearing her hair possessively, his mouth slanted down onto hers, and Kate gave herself up to the maelstrom that erupted instantly around them.

Without really knowing how they’d got there, Kate found herself standing in Tiarnan’s bedroom, facing him. Both were breathing harshly. Her universe had contracted to this moment and this man. It felt utterly right, as necessary as breathing.

She held her half-removed dress to her chest, not even knowing how it had become undone, and with a deep ragged breath let it go. It pooled at her feet in a swirl of vibrant blue silk. She kicked off her shoes and stood before Tiarnan in nothing but lace pants.

‘Come here,’ he said throatily.

Kate moved forward and started to undo his shirt, fingers grazing and revealing dark olive skin covered in a smattering of dark hair. He was so masculine, and it resonated with something deep within her. Recognition of a mate. Her belly quivered. He hadn’t touched her yet, and it was all the more erotic for that. Her breasts felt full and aching and tight, the tips tingling painfully. Kate pushed his shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, and it too joined her dress in a pool of white on the floor.

She trailed her hands down across his defined pectorals, felt his indrawn sharp breath as her fingers trailed lower. She looked down, and amidst the haze of heat that seemed to surround them saw the small cut where her knitting needle had stabbed him just a few nights ago. She traced it lightly, and then bent forward to press a soft kiss to it.

Tiarnan sucked in a breath at the feel of her lips and her breath there. Her hair fell over one shoulder, and when she stood again he looked greedily at her lush form in all its glory. The tiny waist, feminine hips, impossibly long legs … up again to surprisingly full breasts. He quite literally ached to touch her, but this sweet anticipation was too exquisite.

With a voice he barely recognised as his own because it was so full of raw need, he said, ‘Undress me. Please.’

Kate looked up into Tiarnan’s face. She read the restraint and silently thanked him for it. He was giving her time, letting her dictate the pace. Yet she knew if he threw her on the bed right now and took her with no further ado she’d be ready. She felt indecently damp between her thighs. With other men since Tiarnan she’d always felt self-conscious, awkward, but with him it felt natural, right, and that gave her confidence. She had the fleeting wish that she could eradicate all other experiences and make this moment her first time all over again …

Feeling unbearably emotional for a second, she stepped forward and reached up to put her arms around his neck, bringing her breasts into contact with his chest. A shudder of reaction ran through both of them, and it took all of Kate’s strength to stay standing and say somewhat shakily, belying her outward show of confidence, ‘I’ll undress you—but first … a kiss.’

Tiarnan couldn’t resist. He smoothed his hands over her slender arms, then down over the bare curve of her waist and hips, settling on her behind, drawing her close. He dipped his head and met Kate’s mouth with his, and within seconds the flames of desire were igniting around them, their tongues dancing feverishly. Kate forgot about teasing and restraint. She strained upwards on tiptoe to try and get even closer, pressing herself against Tiarnan blindly, seeking more, seeking to assuage the urgent need building deep in her core.

Without breaking contact she brought her hands down between them to his trousers, found the opening, careless in her haste, dragging his trousers down impatiently over lean hips. His hands had gone under her panties, moulding the cheeks of her bottom, making her arch into him, thwarting her attempts to drag down his trousers.

‘Tiarnan …’ She almost sobbed with frustration, not even sure what was hampering her, only knowing that she didn’t want to stop touching him for a second. To lose contact with that hot skin, that heavenly musky scent, would be like depriving herself of oxygen.

His hands came up to her arms and put her back slightly. She felt dizzy, and they were both breathing as if they’d just been running.

‘Kate …’ He sounded hoarse, surprised and slightly bewildered. ‘How could I have denied myself this for so long …?’

With indecent haste he brought his hands to his trousers and finished what Kate couldn’t do. Finally he stood before her, naked and proud, virility oozing from every pore. Kate looked down and her throat went dry as she took him in in all his glory. She looked up again, and even though the room was dark she could see the expression on his face, the look in his darkened eyes. Passion and desire blazed forth—for her.

She was feeling suddenly weak, and as if he sensed it Tiarnan took her hand and led her over to the bed, through the muslin curtains that had been drawn down to protect against the stinging night insects. Surrounded by the gauzy material, the bed was like a cocoon, an oasis of pleasure.

Kate lay back and watched as Tiarnan stretched over her. He smoothed back her hair and it felt unbearably tender. Then he looked down her body, and wherever his eyes rested seemed to throb in response. He cupped one breast and Kate arched her back, eyes widening in a mute plea. She heard a dark chuckle, and felt his breath feather on her hot skin before he took the turgid tip into his mouth and suckled mercilessly, inciting the most intense response Kate could ever remember. She was gasping, grabbing his shoulders, his arms, hands clenched tight around bulging hard muscles as his mouth moved from one breast to the other, torturing her with pleasure. And then he moved down, and down again. The breeze whispered over the wet tips of her breasts and her stomach, where his tongue had touched her.

He pulled down her pants, throwing them aside, and then with ruthless intent pulled her legs apart. Kate stopped breathing for a long moment, her belly sucked in as she watched Tiarnan looking at her with such intimacy that she almost couldn’t stand it.

Rising desire drowned out her mortification. Instinctively she moved on the bed, hips lifting slightly. ‘Please …’ She wasn’t even sure what she was asking for.

Tiarnan looked at her, his hands travelling back up her legs, coming ever closer to her centre, thumbs massaging the tender inner skin of her thighs. His hands stopped at the very top of her legs, thumbs resting on the curls that covered her. They started moving slowly, back and forth, seeking, exploring, kneading her flesh.

Kate sucked in a breath that felt like a sob. ‘Tiarnan.’

‘What? Tell me what you want?’

As if it was the easiest thing in the world.

‘I …’ Kate began brokenly. ‘I want you to touch me … I want you inside me …’

One hand moved, and Kate felt long fingers thread through the damp curls, exploring ever inwards until he felt her slick heat for himself. She felt his reaction run through him. His erection lay thick and heavy against her thigh. She moved restlessly.

‘Like this? First I touch …’

And he did. He touched her intimately. Fingers moving in and out, testing her, drawing out her response, his thumb finding that small hard nub and massaging it until Kate’s hands clenched in the bedsheets so tight that her knuckles were white. She felt all at once helpless, wanton and insatiable. And mortified at how he was turning her into someone she didn’t even recognise. He bent his head, his chest close to hers, brushing against sensitive breasts, and kissed her deeply, erotically, as his hand and fingers caressed her intimately.

But just as she could feel the elusive peak she’d rarely reached with anyone else come like a vision through the haze of desire Tiarnan broke the kiss and removed his hand.

‘Now you touch …’

He brought her hand down to cover his shaft. Kate’s eyes grew big and round, glued to his as she allowed herself to feel and explore as he had done. It was his turn to shift restlessly, colour slashing his cheeks as she moved her hand, tightened her grip, feeling the satin smooth skin slip up and down over the steel-hard core. She could feel their heartbeats thudding slowly and heavily.

When he looked down at her with tense jaw and fever-bright eyes she took her hand away, and shifted herself so that she lay under him. She spread her legs, opening herself up to his welcome heat and heaviness.

‘Now … I want you …’ She reached up and pressed a hot kiss to his mouth, her tongue slipping inside with seductive innocence for a moment before she said, ‘… inside me.’

Tiarnan had lost all sense of time and place. At the last second before desire sucked him under completely he reached for protection and smoothed it on with all the finesse of a novice. This scene was so reminiscent of a dream he hadn’t even acknowledged. He could feel Kate move beneath him. Her hair was spread in a golden halo around her head, and her eyes, like two huge pools of blue, looked up at him. Her legs parted a fraction more, and because it was the most necessary thing in the world he slid his erection, which felt engorged to the point of pain, into her silken heat, and died a small death of pleasure at the exquisite sensation.

He felt her move her hips, drawing him deeper. Exerting extreme control, he slowly started to thrust in and out. His eyes were locked on hers. Twin flags of colour stained her cheeks, her lips were plump and red … her teeth bit them as she fought to keep her moans back. It was all Tiarnan could do not to explode there and then. Seeing her like this was a fulfilment of something he’d so long suppressed.

Their skin was slick with sweat, their heartbeats no longer slow and heavy but frantic. The tempo increased. Tiarnan could feel Kate’s legs wrap around him, urging him even deeper, harder. The pinnacle came in a blaze of white light and pleasure so intense they both stopped breathing for a long moment, hung suspended in time. And then came the fall, tumbling down and down all the way, their bodies releasing and pulsing for an age as Kate accepted Tiarnan’s weight onto her, wrapped legs and arms around him even tighter, binding him to her.

Tiarnan woke at some point and felt an empty space beside him. Immediately a low hum of panic gripped him that he did not like. He lifted his head. Dawn was touching the sky outside and Kate stood on the balcony, leaning on the railing looking out to sea, dressed in nothing but his white shirt. The outline of her body was silhouetted enticingly under the material. Relief surged through him—which he also did not like.

Tiarnan got out of bed. As if linked to him by an invisible thread, Kate stood and turned around, pulled the shirt together over her chest haphazardly with one hand. Her hair was tumbled around her shoulders. Tiarnan prowled towards her. She was the only thing filling his mind, his vision in that moment. Seeing her dressed in nothing but his white shirt should have been a cliché. But it wasn’t. Plenty of women had dressed like this for him, as if in an effort to do the contrived sexy thing, and all it had incited within him was mild irritation. Right now, though, irritation was the last thing he was feeling. What he was feeling was a surge of primal possessiveness rushing through him.

Kate stood straighter as he came closer, put her hands out behind her on the railing. The shirt fell open, revealing tantalising glimpses of the twin globes of her breasts and then, down further, the ever so soft swell of her belly and the apex of her thighs, where golden curls hid paradise. Tiarnan reached her and pulled her into him, his arms around her naked back under the shirt. Even though they’d barely slept all night, he was ready to take her again.

He felt her lift one leg to hook it around his hip … knew instantly that she was ready again too. It was the most powerful aphrodisiac. They didn’t even make it back to the bed. Tiarnan slid into her there and then. And with the dawn breaking somewhere in the east, tingeing the sky with pink, he and Kate entered another realm of the senses.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KATE had never felt so lethargic in her life—as if every limb was weighted down with a delicious warm stone. She couldn’t even open her eyes. Vague flashes of memory came back: her dress pooling at her feet; kissing Tiarnan until she had to break away to suck in air; his body moving into hers, taking her breath away all over again, slippery with sweat; Tiarnan drawing her on top of him and watching her face as she took him in, then flipping her onto her back, driving in and out with such exquisite and ruthless precision that she’d been begging for release, near to tears.

Kate tried without success to shut the images out. Heat was already flaring through her just thinking about what they’d shared. She remembered getting up at some point and standing on the balcony, as if to try and make sense of it all, and then she’d heard him get up and he’d joined her there. Within seconds of touching they’d been burning up all over again. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if that might block out the wanton image. She could vaguely remember him lifting her up into his arms … after that a bath … and then oblivion. An oblivion touched with the peace that came from a long-held desire finally fulfilled. Her somewhat pathetic concern that sleeping with Tiarnan might prove to be disappointing had been blown into the stratosphere.

Just then a sound came from somewhere near—a door opened, small feet ran in.

‘Katie, Katie—come on, get up, sleepyhead!’

Immediately she was alert. She was in her own bed, dressed in the T-shirt and boxer shorts she’d laid out on her pillow the previous evening. Rosie and her friend Zoe were standing looking at her, holding back the muslin curtain that was around the bed. Kate sat up and pushed down the clamour of questions. Tiarnan must have put her to bed here and dressed her after the bath. Had she really been so exhausted that she hadn’t even been aware?

Heat suffused her face, and she tried to hide it by throwing back the covers and climbing out of bed. She smiled at the girls, hoping they wouldn’t notice her discomfiture.

‘What time is it?’