As the music grew to a close, I headed for the chaise, hyperaware he tracked my every move.
One hand clutching the train of my robe and the other my champagne, I reclined against the headrest and tucked my legs to one side, careful not to reveal too much skin.
Even still, Damian made a rough sound as his eyes devoured the little skin I exposed.
Discarding the champagne, I reached for the platter of canapés. ‘You won’t drink with me. Will you at least eat something or am I wasting my breath there too?’ I plucked a grape, popped it between my lips and held it there for teasing seconds before biting into it. The juices exploded on my tongue. I held in my moan, sure it was the fierce arousal burning through me responsible for my heightened senses.
I resented Damian a little for inciting the unquenchable flames so it was a little gratifying when he stumbled forward, his movements uncharacteristically jerky as his gaze switched from my legs to my mouth to the platter and back again.
‘I see your fantasies include copious amounts of torture,’ he stated roughly.
I feigned wide-eyed innocence. ‘I’m just offering sustenance. How is that torture?’
‘You know exactly what you’re doing.’
I shrugged. ‘Are you not enjoying yourself?’
His gaze rushed over me once more. ‘The entertainment is...stimulating.’
I laughed and watched his eyes darken.
‘I like the way you laugh.’
His compliment took me by surprise. ‘Do you?’
He nodded. ‘The problem is so far I’ve been denied it.’
‘Ah.’ I smiled. ‘You don’t like things not going your way, huh?’
His mouth firmed. ‘It’s a curiously novel experience. Which I don’t want to ruin the mood with.’
‘Then try these French tarts. They’re to die for.’
I picked one and held it against his lips. He caught it with his teeth, chewed and swallowed without taking his eyes off me.
I was a thirty-one-year-old woman in control of a multimillion-dollar business, and yet having Damian Mortimer eat from the palm of my hand was a heady experience that made me as giddy as a schoolgirl.
In the background, Maria Callas wailed in guttural French. ‘I love Maria Callas. Don’t you?’ I asked, toying with my belt.
Damian sauntered to the bottom edge of the chaise and lowered himself onto the seat. ‘She’ll do. Personally I prefer something a little older.’
His hands curled around my ankles and lifted my feet into his lap.
My breath caught when my instep connected with the hard ridge in his trousers. ‘How much older?’
Warm fingers trailed up my silk-covered calves. ‘Puccini holds my attention. Vivaldi equally so.’
‘Ah, you’re the stuffy opera-loving type.’
His smile was a touch warmer but he didn’t look up from where his thumbs gently dug into my calves. ‘Something that lifts your soul can’t be stuffy. I’m also equally moved by a Bowie song.’
His magic fingers reached the backs of my knees and lingered. I couldn’t help my gasp as heat lanced my body.
When his gaze stopped pointedly at where I held the robe closed at my thighs my fingers tightened. I fought the urge to open myself up to him. Instead I wanted to dig deeper beneath his surface even though he’d clearly stated that he’d prefer me not to.
‘What else moves you?’ I asked, ignoring the breathlessness in my voice.
‘You. You move me, Neve, even when I don’t want to be.’
The terse, unfettered confession strangled my breath.
I cautioned myself against being taken in by it. We were living a fantasy. Closed off in a bubble of searing desire that had no substance outside these walls. It would be foolish to get carried away by anything that happened here.
Anything that didn’t feed my goal to have Damian at my mercy.
‘Show me,’ I commanded. ‘Show me how much I move you.’
His nostrils flared as I tugged on my belt. The hands cupping my knees tightened and his fingers dug in, adding another searing layer of lust to my already rampant arousal.
His gaze fixed at the opening to my robe, probing as his hand trailed back down to ease off one heel. Firm hands caressed my foot, then raised it to plant a soft kiss on my instep. He trailed his lips over my ankle bone, up the inside of my leg to my knee before repeating the intoxicating course with my other leg.
Damian shifted, hitched one knee onto the seat and arranged my legs on either side of his body. Then he prowled forward until his upper body was draped over me. Catching the sides of the robe, he slowly eased them apart, swallowed thickly as his gaze hungrily raked over me.
My lingerie was authentic French lace and expensive satin, bought as a birthday present to myself. The moss-green material formed a corset that cinched in my waist and blatantly emphasised my curves with the tops of my breasts almost spilling free of it.
‘Jesus,’ he rasped hoarsely.
‘Do you like what you see, Damian?’
‘Bloody hell, yes,’ he replied in a strained voice, whispering his hands over the satin in a light dance over the tops of my breasts before rising to caress my neck.
After a moment, his fingers dipped beneath the robe, slid it from my shoulders and down my arms before lifting me free to toss it away.
He sat back on his heels.
No longer restricted, I draped my arms over the chaise, and moved one foot towards his lap, shamelessly rubbing his rock-hard erection.
His eyes squeezed shut, a pained grimace lancing over his features before he speared me with a sizzling stare. ‘Tell me what you would’ve done if I hadn’t come.’
The unexpected question threw me, as did the possessive throb in his voice. I hadn’t quite taken Damian to be the possessive type.
‘Why?’
‘Because I intend to make it better than you could ever have managed on your own.’
‘That’s a bold boast.’
‘Tell me,’ he insisted.
‘I was going to listen to music, enjoy the champagne and canapés. I may or may not have had a reading of E. E. Cummings in mind. Then I was going to relish this chaise for a while before moving on to other things.’
‘What other things?’ he demanded gruffly.
I bit the corner of my lip, hesitant to reveal my private fantasy. I didn’t plan on telling him that most of them had revolved around him so I made it up on the fly. ‘I had every intention of using a few of my toys to make myself come. But now you’re here...you get to participate. But first...’
Eyes blazing with carnal heat hooked on mine. ‘Hmm?’
‘I want you to kiss me, Damian.’
He didn’t need a second invitation.
Hot, demanding lips fused with mine, his tongue breaching my mouth to slick erotically against mine. There was an edgy hunger to his kiss as he gorged on me. I started to reach for him but paused. There was something decadent and arousing about delaying the gratification of putting my hands on him.
But that didn’t stop me from digging my heels in the seat, raising myself up and shamelessly rubbing my body against