Drakon reached out and took Gemini in his arms. He moulded the softness of her body against his hardness, aware that she wanted this as much as he did as he heard the shallowness of her breathing, saw the swell of her breasts above her dress, the nipples hard against the softness of that material, and felt the warmth of the rest of her body instinctively curve intimately into his.
‘Drakon…?’ She sounded slightly panicked now, as he studied her intently before moving one of his hands to cup the side of her face, to gently part the softness of her lips. The soft pad of his thumb dipped into the heated moisture of her mouth before slowly spreading that moisture across her lips. ‘Drakon…!’ she gasped weakly, and she allowed her bag to slide to the floor of the lift and her arms to move about his waist beneath his jacket.
Her hands were warm against his back through the silk of his shirt. It was all the encouragement he needed to lower his head and capture the moistness of her lips with his, groaning low in his throat as those lips parted further and the kiss deepened. Their ragged breathing sounded loud in the still silence of the dimly lit lift as the two of them sucked and bit on each other’s lips as they kissed hungrily, passionately.
Drakon only lifted his lips from hers in order to taste the creaminess of her throat as he pushed her back against the wall of the lift and ground the hard and aching throb of his arousal against her. She tasted of warmth and honey, of arousal, and her skin was hot against his lips as he kissed his way down to the swell of her breasts, tasting and licking her there, muttering his dissatisfaction as the fitted bodice of her dress prevented him from going lower.
Gemini was so aroused, so lost in the pleasure of Drakon’s kisses and caresses, that she wasn’t even aware of his having lowered the zip at the back of her dress and tugged aside the material until she felt his lips against the bareness of her breasts. His tongue was a moist rasp across her nipple before he drew that sensitive peak deep into the heat of his mouth. Her hands grasped his shoulders for support as his fingers cupped her other breast and his thumb moved across it in the same rhythmic caress, causing a warm rush of moisture to pool and dampen between her thighs.
Drakon continued to grind the hardness of his arousal against her and her breath caught in her throat, her arousal tightening to fever pitch as she looked down at him, his lashes long and dark against the olive skin of his hollowed cheeks, those firm and ruthless lips parted over her nipple as he drew on her deeply, hungrily, his teeth biting into the softness of her flesh, his tongue a rough and erotic scrape of pleasure.
She gave a whimper of protest as his lips and tongue reluctantly released that turgid nipple, only to moan low in her throat as he turned their attention to her other breast. Her fingers became entangled in the darkness of his hair as the ache between her thighs intensified to a burn of need that caused her to shift restlessly against the long length of his shaft, crying out softly as she felt his hardness rub against her swollen flesh through the fine fabric of their clothes, groaning, gasping, as she continued to move rhythmically against him, feeling herself spiralling out of control as the intensity, the depth of pleasure, hurtled her towards release.
‘Hello? Mr Lyonedes? Do you need assistance?’
Gemini stiffened dazedly and Drakon stilled against her breast as that intrusive voice pierced the heat of their arousal.
‘Mr Lyonedes? Do you require assistance, sir?’
Gemini recognised the voice as belonging to Max, the Head of Security for Lyonedes Enterprises she had met that morning, even as Drakon released her abruptly before stepping away from her.
His expression was tight and extremely grim as he looked down at her darkly for several seconds, before turning away to lift the receiver beside the lit panel. ‘No assistance needed, Max,’ he barked into the mouthpiece.
‘Are you sure, sir? The lift appears to be stuck between the thirteenth and fourteenth floors…?’
‘Not stuck, Max, just not moving,’ he assured the other man tautly. ‘Miss Bartholomew and I will be descending to the ground floor in a few moments.’
There was a brief, telling silence before the other man spoke again. ‘Very good. Thank you, sir.’
‘Miss Bartholomew’ had quickly pulled up the bodice of her dress while Drakon spoke to his Head of Security, the heat now in her cheeks due to intense embarrassment rather than arousal. Not only had she almost made love with Drakon in a lift—which was surely mortifying enough?—but after that brief conversation with his employer, no doubt Max was also fully aware of exactly why the lift had been stopped between floors!
Good Lord, she had almost made love with Drakon in a lift!
Drakon Lyonedes…
Even more frustratingly, his hair smoothed back into style and his suit jacket and tie now straightened, he now looked just as smoothly self-contained as usual. Whereas she—goodness knew what she must look like, with her dress still unzipped at the back and her hair in a tangle about her shoulders, her cheeks hot and the peach gloss kissed from her lips!
‘Turn around.’
Gemini raised startled lids and looked warily up at Drakon. She moistened her slightly swollen and sensitive lips before speaking. ‘Sorry…?’
His own mouth was a thin, uncompromising line in the arrogant planes of his face, his eyes as hard as the onyx they resembled. ‘If you turn around I will re-zip your dress.’
Gemini clutched the material to her breasts and quickly turned away from him, trembling when she felt every cold inch of that zip against her heated skin as Drakon deftly refastened it. She wondered what on earth she was supposed to do now…How was she supposed to behave towards the man she had almost made love with in a lift? Was there a precedent for that sort of thing? Some sort of protocol that she—never having made love in a lift before—didn’t have a clue about?
Of course there wasn’t a protocol for this type of thing! And hysteria really wasn’t an option either—which meant Gemini had to get a grip as quickly as possible and stop behaving like an inexperienced idiot. Even if she was one…
Oh, she had dated often at university—had even thought she might have been in love a couple of times and mildly experimented with lovemaking. But once she’d bought and started to run the shop her time had pretty much been taken up with making it into a success, leaving little opportunity for dating, let alone falling in love. In fact, now that she gave it some thought, dinner this evening with Drakon was as close as she had got to having anything that even resembled a date for well over a year.
Which was absolutely no excuse—and definitely not an explanation—for the explosion of arousal and passion that had just happened between the two of them!
She might be inexperienced, but Drakon certainly wasn’t. And after her behaviour just now she doubted that he would believe she was either…
‘Do you intend to stare at that wall for the rest of our journey down?’
Gemini flinched at the hard amusement she could hear in Drakon’s voice as she felt the lift begin its descent. ‘Not at all,’ she denied briskly, and she turned, bending down to retrieve her clutch bag from the floor of the lift before forcing herself to look up and meet the hardness of his gaze. ‘Well, that was certainly…different,’ she said lamely.
‘Yes.’ Drakon’s mouth twisted in self-derision. ‘Different’ was certainly one way of describing the way in which the situation had totally spiralled out of his control once he had taken Gemini into his arms!
He hadn’t meant to kiss her at all, let alone touch her in that intimate way, but once he had done so and she had responded…! It hadn’t mattered to Drakon at all that at that moment they were in a lift together. Nor had he given