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

His voice felt as if it was being dragged over gravel. ‘Not all done yet … I think you should kiss it better.’

Kate’s insides seemed to be melting and combusting all at once. She was unable to look away from Tiarnan’s gaze. It held her like a magnet. Time stood still around them. She was so close now. One little tiny step and she’d be right there, captive between his legs, and she would be able to feel … She had to stop this madness. She had to remember that he’d deliberately set out to get her to Madrid to seduce her—had to remember her vow to be strong, resolute. She couldn’t let this happen. She struggled to swallow.

‘Tiarnan, you’re not four years old …’ Her voice sounded pathetically weak and feeble.

‘You stabbed me with your knitting needle,’ he growled. ‘The least you can do is kiss me better.’

What they were saying should have had a thread of easy humour. But humour was long gone. This was deadly serious.

Kate’s heart was pumping so fast now she felt sure he would be able to hear it. His hands on her elbows were strong, rigid. He wasn’t going to let her go, and she didn’t even know if she would have the strength to step away without falling down. This was the most erotically charged moment she could ever remember experiencing. Her throat was as dry as sandpaper.

‘One kiss and then you’ll let me go?’

Without taking his eyes from hers, he nodded.

Kate pulled away slightly and Tiarnan let go—cautiously. He leant back a little farther and rested his hands behind him on the table. It made him appear vulnerable and even more sexy, his torso long and lean, shoulders broad. Kate looked down at where the wound was. She put her hands behind her back, as if she couldn’t trust herself not to run her fingers over the ridges of muscles that rippled over his belly. She felt weak inside—hot and achy.

She bent down over his chest, and down further, her mouth hovering over where the plaster was. His skin was dark olive, taut and gleaming, begging to be touched, kissed. She imagined it to be hot to the touch, and pressed her mouth just above the plaster. Without having consciously intended it, her mouth was slightly open. She could feel and hear his indrawn breath. Acting on pure instinct, Kate darted her tongue-tip out for the tiniest moment. His skin was warm, and slightly salty on her tongue. Lust coiled through her like a live flame. She could smell the musk of arousal and didn’t know if it was hers or his. She wanted with a desperate urgency to explore further, to press herself close and feel if he was aroused …

With every atom of strength Kate possessed, she managed to straighten up and look Tiarnan in the eye. Her hands were still clenched tight behind her back. She felt feverish. His eyes burned into hers, and suddenly Tiarnan’s hands gripped her upper arms and he pulled her right into him. Caught off balance, she fell forward. He caught her full weight, and her hands came out automatically to splay across his chest. Desire flooded her belly and between her legs with traitorous urgency.

‘Your wound …’ she gasped.

‘Will be fine.’

She was desperate now. As desperate for him to keep holding her as she was to get away—and that killed her. ‘You said one kiss.’

He looked at her for a long moment. Kate felt her breasts crushed to his chest and, worse, felt his arousal hard against the apex of her legs. She was right in the cradle of his lap, unable to save herself from falling headlong into the fire. Her whole body was crying out to mould into his, to allow it to go up in flames.

She repeated herself, as if that might change the direction things had been taking since he’d walked up to her on that stage in San Francisco.

‘You said one kiss.’

Tiarnan snaked one arm around her back, pulling her in even tighter. The other went to the back of her head. She was his captive, and she couldn’t move even if she wanted to.

‘I lied.’

CHAPTER FOUR

TIARNAN’S mouth came down onto Kate’s with all the devastation of a match being put to a dry piece of tinder. Ten years of build-up exploded inside her. Her hands curled into his chest and he pulled her so close to his body that all she could feel was rock-hard muscle and his arousal. Kate could feel moisture gather between her legs and she moved unconsciously, as if she could assuage the need building there.

With a move she wasn’t even aware of Tiarnan shifted them, so that Kate was now sitting on the table and he was leaning over her. Eyes closed, Kate could only feel and experience, and give herself up to the onslaught on her senses. Tiarnan’s hands were in her hair, around her face. His mouth was relentless, not breaking contact, his tongue stabbing deep—and she was as insatiable as he.

Her arms wound up around his neck, clinging, hands tangling in his short silky hair. She finally broke her mouth away for a brief moment, sucking in harsh breaths. Her heart hammered as she felt Tiarnan’s hands move down, moulding over her waist, cupping under her buttocks, pulling her into him even more.

She opened her eyes, but they felt heavy, Tiarnan’s face was close, his breath feathering across her face, his mouth hovering. Feeling bereft, Kate reached up again and pressed her mouth feverishly to his, her whole body arching into Tiarnan’s, revelling in his hard strength. No other man had ever made her feel so hot, so sensual.

Tiarnan’s hands went to her shirt and she could feel him open the buttons, fingers grazing her skin, the curve of her breasts. She didn’t protest—she couldn’t. Impatient to touch him too, she pushed his shirt off completely, so his chest was bare, and ran her hands over the smooth skin of his shoulders. She felt the muscles move under his skin as his hands pushed aside her shirt. His mouth left hers and blazed a trail of kisses down over her jaw and neck. Kate’s head fell back. All she was aware of was here and now and how badly she craved this touch. His touch.

Tiarnan’s arm supported her as he tipped her off balance slightly so she leant further back. His mouth was on the upper slope of her breast and all her nerve-endings seemed to have gathered at the tip, so tight it hurt.

When she felt him pull down her bra strap and then her bra to expose her breast, her breath stopped. Tiarnan cupped the voluptuous mound with one hand, his thumb passing back and forth over the hard aching tip. Kate bit her lip and looked down. She was breathing fast, one hand behind her, trying to balance, clenched into the table as if that could stop her tipping over the edge of this sensation. Between her legs she burned, and she could feel herself fighting the urge to push into Tiarnan’s body.

‘So beautiful …’ he breathed, looking down at her cupped breast with its pouting dusky peak.

Before Kate could gather her fractured thoughts and steady her breathing he lowered his head and his mouth closed over her nipple. She let out a long moan somewhere between torture and heaven as he drew it into the hot cavern of his mouth and suckled.

This felt so right—as if they had been transported back in time and this was a natural progression of that kiss. And yet … it shouldn’t be. Not after ten years. How could ten years of other experiences be obliterated so easily? Wiped out as if they hadn’t even existed?

It was that tiny sliver of rationality seeping into her head that woke Kate from her sensual trance. She became aware of the fact that she was practically supine on the kitchen table, and when she felt Tiarnan’s hand search for and find the button on her jeans, about to flick it open, she struggled upwards, battling a fierce desire to just give in.

‘No … no, Tiarnan. Stop.’ Her hands were on his arms, pushing him back.

After a long moment he stood up, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering. Kate knew she wasn’t much more composed. She dropped her hands. Her voice felt raw.

‘We can’t do this. Rosie might wake and find us … or Esmerelda.’

He looked at her for a long moment and finally took a step back, raking a hand through his short hair. He emanated veritable waves of danger, his face stark with a raw masculine beauty that nearly made Kate throw herself back into his arms. But she didn’t.

She stood from the table on shaky legs and pulled her bra up, her shirt together, turning her back to him for a moment. She felt dizzy.

His voice cut through her dizziness. ‘A few moments more and here would have done fine … But you’re right. This isn’t the time or the place.’

She rejected the almost violent need that beat through her body. She knew he was right; a few more moments and here would have been fine. Anywhere would have been fine. The rug in front of the fire. Any feeling of exhilaration that their desire had been mutual was lost in the humiliation that burned her again. Her voice was fierce.

‘There won’t be a time or place, Tiarnan.’

Kate felt a hard hand on her arm and she was pulled around to face him. His face was glowering down at her, taut with a frustrated need that had to be reflected on hers too.

‘How can you deny what just happened here?’

Tiarnan saw Kate’s eyes widen and he let her go. The force of need running through him was so strong he was actually afraid he couldn’t contain it. She’d felt like nothing he could describe or articulate in his arms. Soft and fragrant and pliant … and so passionate. But he was shocked to come to his senses and acknowledge that if she hadn’t stopped him he would be taking her right now on the kitchen table, overhead lights blazing down, like some overgrown teenager who couldn’t wait.

Where was his sophistication? His cool logical approach to such matters? She’d had to remind him about Rosie. She stood, holding her shirt together, hair tousled over her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, lips red and engorged with blood. His hormones were already raging back to life. He had to get a grip.

Kate struggled to close her shirt. She felt as though she’d just been through some kind of seismic earth shift. She watched as Tiarnan’s face closed down. He bent to pick up his shirt, muscles rippling across his back, and when he put it on her eye was drawn to the rip and the dark stain of blood. Her belly clenched. She couldn’t answer his words. Couldn’t deny what had happened.

She looked down, struggling with her bottom button, feeling tears threaten. God. How could she have been so unutterably weak?

‘Kate.’

She composed herself and finally closed the button before looking up. She hoped her face was blank, her eyes giving nothing away. She couldn’t count on her years of training around Tiarnan any more. Her control was shot to pieces.

His shirt was back on, haphazardly done up, making Kate’s heart turn over and making her want to do it up properly for him. She clenched her hands by her sides, fought the urge to tidy her hair, which was all over the place.

His eyes snared hers. She couldn’t look away. Her mind blanked.

‘I never meant to leap on you the minute I walked in the door … but you can see what happens between us …’