Olivero's Outrageous Proposal

‘It’s a bit late to realise that,’ he teased softly. ‘What if I had two left feet and trampled you underfoot from the moment we started?’

I wouldn’t have minded. She had to clamp her lips shut fast to stop the words escaping from her unguarded mouth. She didn’t feel as if her feet belonged to her anyway. She could almost have been hovering six inches above the floor, her steps so light and beyond her control.

‘Then relax.’

‘I am relaxed.’

He didn’t respond—at least not verbally but the slow lifting of one dark brow to question her comment made her heart kick in stunned reaction. Her mind might be whirling in sensation, but her body was holding itself straight and upright as she had been taught in the dance classes her mother had insisted on at the exclusive school she’d attended. The distance between their bodies was tiny—barely there.

But then she looked up into those stunning blue eyes and her heart skipped a beat. There was so much less of that blue there now, the enlarged black of his pupils swallowing up all the colour until his gaze was like a lake of black glass in which she could see herself reflected, small and so very vulnerable. She lost time for a moment, and almost stumbled. She might have tripped if it hadn’t been for the strength of the arms supporting her, the width and power of the broad shoulder under her hand.

But it wasn’t vulnerability that made her heart kick so hard under the blue silk of her dress that she had to catch her breath on a hasty gasp. It was a realisation that made her head spin, her pulse race.

He felt it too.

She could hardly believe it but there could be little doubt it was true. Dario Olivero, the dark, dangerous-looking pirate who just minutes before had been a total stranger, was now in the grip of the same heated response that was burning her up like a bush fire. He was as aroused as she was, and she was close to swooning with need, weakened by the sort of sensual hunger that she had never known before.

‘Dario...’

This time his name was just a croak, the dryness of her mouth, her throat making it almost impossible to speak. But he caught it and a strange flicker of a smile curled the corners of his sensual mouth before he bent his head again and let his cheek rest against the side of her head, his lips brushing her hair as he whispered one word again.

‘Relax...’

Gently but irresistibly he drew her towards him, the pressure of one powerful hand tight against her back, the heat of his palm burning the exposed skin over her spine.

‘Relax...’ he repeated, the softly accented voice entrancing her.

She melted against him, her body curving against his, loose and pliant. Her head was against his chest so that she could hear the heavy, strong beat of his heart under her ear. The scent of him enclosed her, the sway of her body matching his, and she gave herself up to sensation, to an awareness and sensitivity that swept aside the possibility of any other feeling. The heavy pressure of his arousal against her stomach awoke an answering hunger deep inside, an ache of need that was both pleasure and a yearning that demanded to be assuaged.

But not yet. Not until she had enjoyed this sensation of closeness, this connection for a while longer, and taken from it all she could get.

* * *

He had a nerve, Dario told himself, telling her to relax, when all the time his whole body felt as if it was in the grip of a raging fever that threatened to burn him up, reducing any chance of control into a pile of ashes blowing round his head. The fact that she had obeyed him only added to the tautness of every nerve that stung with tension every time she moved.

The whisper of her soft soles on the floor, the swirl of the bright blue dress around her slender legs all worked on his senses with hypnotic effect. Every sense, every part of him, his whole concentration was on the woman he held in his arms—the feel of her, the scent, the touch of her against his hands, skin against skin. But it was not enough. He wanted more and yet he was not prepared to stop this, to have it end. Not yet, even if it was to move on to something more viscerally satisfying. Something that every cell in his body was starting to demand with hungry determination.

This wasn’t what he had planned on, what he had expected to happen. But right now he was more than prepared to let it go its own way. Any thought of thwarting Marcus’s plans had been relegated to the hazy part of his mind. He would let this play out as it was for now...

He drew in a sharp, controlling breath just as one song came to an end and the band began another one. A slow dance. The sort of dance that encouraged a man to take a woman in his arms and hold her close.

So had he made the move or had Alyse stepped closer, moving into his arms without hesitation? She was so close, curved against him, the arch of her body pressed against his at breast and waist and hip so that it was impossible that she couldn’t feel the heat and hardness of the hunger he was unable to disguise. She must feel it and yet she showed no sign at all of objecting. If anything, she slid a little closer, making him curse silently at the pleasure that was so close to pain that burned through him as a result.

‘Alyse...’

It was just a groan, a note of warning. A public gathering, an elegant ballroom, was not the place for a response like this—so hard, so hot, so strong. This was a sensation that belonged in the bedroom, with his clothes flung wildly aside, the blue silk ripped from her body. It was all he could do to rein his raging senses in, hold himself upright...

‘Oh, hell...’

It was impossible. Couldn’t be done.

With an acknowledgement of defeat, he dropped his head down low, brushing his lips against the golden silk of her hair, feeling the delicate strands slide under his mouth. She murmured something softly and moved just a little closer, angling her head against the support of his chest so that the fine skin of her cheek, her neck, were exposed, offered to him for the kiss, the caress he knew he could not hold back from taking.

The taste of her flesh was like a drug, intoxicating, seducing him. He couldn’t wait any longer.

‘Alyse...’ His voice was rough and thickened with passion against the delicate curve of her ear. ‘I want... Let’s...’

‘Let’s go somewhere else.’ Her voice blended with his, the words exactly the same. The same note of hungry need blurring the sound so that they swirled and spun inside his head. ‘Somewhere more private.’

When she disengaged herself from his grasp and her hand slid into his, curving soft and warm around his fingers, Dario had no idea whether he was the one who took them from the dance floor or if in fact it was Alyse who led the way.

He only knew that this had been inevitable from the moment their eyes had first met. It was written into their fates, and no one and nothing was going to stop this now.

CHAPTER TWO (#u0a95fbbc-31ad-5669-8551-db7ca721f27b)

THE HALL BEYOND the ballroom was silent, strangely unoccupied after the crowds that had packed the other room. A buffet supper was being served as part of the event, and many people were already queuing there, waiting to be served. As a result, the almost empty hallway seemed unexpectedly cold and uncomfortable, making Alyse shiver in shock at the sudden change of temperature.

‘I need my coat...’

She fumbled in her clutch bag, looking for the cloakroom ticket. She had just found it when Dario reached over and took the slip of paper from her hand with a sharp tug.

‘Wait here.’

A gesture of courtesy—or taking control? Alyse couldn’t help wondering as she watched him stride across the marble floor to where the cloakroom attendant stood on duty. She didn’t know and she didn’t want to stop and consider the question. Control was a word she associated with her father—or with the sort of behaviour Marcus had been trying to force onto her—and she didn’t want to think of either of them right now.

Just two minutes out of the ballroom—two minutes away from the warm and intimate closeness of their dance—and already the heat and sensation had started to evaporate, leaving her with an uncomfortable shivery feeling inside. She wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to bring some warmth back to uncomfortably chilled skin.

She hadn’t wanted to move apart from him; hadn’t wanted to break out of that cocoon that had formed around them. From the moment they had moved, Dario turning away from her, a cold, creeping sense of reality had started to invade the little bubble of delight she had been living in.

‘What am I doing?’

She actually muttered the words out loud as she kept her eyes fixed on the back of Dario’s dark head, the width of his powerful shoulders.

Was she really planning on heading out of here with him? With a man she had only met...her eyes slid to a clock above the cloakroom door...less than an hour before.

The main door opened with a heavy swish, someone who had gone outside for a sneaky cigarette coming in and leaving it partially open. Alyse balanced on her toes like an athlete readying for the gun to sound the starting point. She could go now...

But even as she took a step forward she caught the wave of cold and damp that came into the hall from behind the new arrival. His jacket was splashed with water too, warning of a change in weather outside. She would need her coat...and her coat...

Was in Dario’s hands, the fine black velvet looking impossibly soft and delicate in the grip of those long, tanned fingers.

She couldn’t get her feet to move, freezing where she stood, her eyes locking with his over the heads of the people around them. He knew what she had had on her mind; she could tell it from the faint fast frown that drew those dark brows together, the narrowing of the blue eyes.

‘Helena!’

Behind her, just beyond the doorway into the ballroom, Alyse heard an uncomfortably familiar male voice raised in greeting and just the sound of it brought a rush of a whole new set of feelings. In the space of an uneven heartbeat she was brought back to the moment she had arrived at the ball, the desperate plan, only half formed, to make sure that Marcus saw her with someone else so that then perhaps he would take no for an answer.

A swift sidelong glance over her shoulder brought confirmation of the slow creep of unease down her neck. Marcus was here. Suddenly, from wanting him to see her with someone else it had become the last thing she wanted. She wanted to get out of here now and let this evening that had suddenly turned magical in contrast to weeks of tension and strain continue. Pushing herself into action, she turned her feet towards Dario.