‘No problem.’ His dark gaze dwelled smoulderingly on her face. ‘They assure me it will be very, very quiet.’
He ushered her into a lift and pressed the button for the fifth floor.
‘Have you …?’ She turned to gaze at him. ‘Have you ever read The Pursuit of Love?’
He glanced keenly at her, eyes gleaming. ‘The Pursuit of …?’
She tried not to show it, but she was breathing so fast her breasts were rising and falling like twin peaks during a major quake. ‘Love. The heroine finds herself stranded at the Gare du Nord without any money. This Frenchman strolls by …’
His eyes sharpened. ‘A Frenchman?’
‘Yes. A tall, very sexy, very wicked duke. He persuades her to go home with him and he …’
He lifted his brows. ‘Oui? What does he do?’
‘Oh. Well, er …’ She stared at his mouth and said breathlessly, ‘I may need to revisit that part of the story to remind myself.’
His eyes burned. The air crackled with a tension that singed her very nerve endings.
The doors slid open and he guided her along a hushed corridor until they came to a door numbered 514. He slipped the card into the lock.
The door opened to a light, elegant foyer.
Shari blinked. ‘But—this is a room.’
He shrugged. ‘Bien sûr.’
She walked in, tingling with a primitive anticipation. The room was spacious, with beautiful panelled walls and moulded ceilings at least four metres high. The carpet under her feet felt as deep and soft as a cloud. The further in she walked, the more there was to steal her breath.
A fine antique tapestry. Paintings, sparingly placed. Silken panels in shades of carmine and duck-egg blue, reflecting the gorgeous colours in the Persian rugs. Then there were the double windows with their long sensuous drapes, the moulded fireplace and heartbreakingly exquisite Louis Quinze furnishings.
What was most significant to her eye, though, and zinged through her like an ocean wave, was beckoning through an open door. A magnificent king-sized bed, arrayed with plump, inviting pillows set atop a charming counterpane.
‘Oh,’ she said faintly. ‘It’s a suite.’
‘As private as we could wish for, surely.’ He strolled across to the windows and gazed down into the street. She noted a sudden tension in the set of his wide shoulders. A suspenseful tension that communicated itself to her and electrified the very room.
He turned to her, and her lungs seized. Beneath his heavy brows his dark eyes shimmered with a molten, lascivious intent.
He said softly, ‘Would you care to take off your hat?’
She tingled all over. Her heart was thundering. Her feet started to move, and as he strode swiftly across to her she practically flung herself at his hard body. She threw her arms around his neck and met his fierce, thirsty impassioned kisses with reckless disregard for any moral or overruling principle.
Her hat landed on the sofa, and while she tore at his shirt and unbuckled his belt to open his trousers he dropped her suit on the rug, unclipped her bra and stripped her bare.
The lithe beauty of his lean, muscular body, never seen, only felt, was as thrilling as her most fevered imaginings.
She gasped as his powerful erection rose in proud and gorgeous majesty. But her questing hands barely had time to stroke, squeeze and relish the prime virile beauty before he fell upon her nakedness like a hungry beast.
He kissed her breasts, licked her engorged nipples, blazed a trail of greedy kisses down to her navel and below.
Then he dropped to his knees. Embracing her thighs, he ravaged her curls with his mouth, then pushed her to the sofa. She trembled with sheer excitement. Parting her thighs, he paused a moment to feast his eyes, then, while she whimpered for blissful joy, bent his dark head between her legs and licked the tickly velvet. Tingles of erotic pleasure radiated through her in dark liquid waves.
When he took her clit between his gorgeous lips and sucked—heaven on earth—her panting moans turned to sobs of pure ecstasy.
With an actual blossoming orgasm, she cried out in disbelief when he drew away, leaving her hanging on an edge. ‘Don’t stop now. Please, please, keep …’
But, ignoring her complaints, he stood up to draw a small package from his jacket pocket. Swiftly he sheathed himself, then, taking her hands, pulled her off the sofa and into his arms. In the stumbling rush to the bedroom, she hooked her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips.
There was a thrilling urgency to his haste. Devouring her mouth with what could only be called passionate savagery, he plunged inside her even before she hit the mattress.
Once on it, she gave herself up to the heavenly friction. And he was a master. He filled her so full her body exploded with light with his every sinuous movement. Rocking her into an urgent pulsing rhythm, he ignited rivers of magic in her flesh. Fireworks infused her every capillary.
And just like the first time, the fierce and hungry fervour in his eyes and the athletic synchronicity of their bodies rocketed her passion to an explosive and fantastic climax.
Long after her wild, appreciative cries subsided, she floated, eyes closed for seconds, minutes, maybe even hours on a cloud of blissful contemplation.
Vindicated. Vindicated as a woman.
When her heartbeat was back to near normal Luc lay on his back, lashes half the way down to reveal only slits of eyes, like a slumberous lion after a killing.
She smiled. ‘That was fantastic.’
‘Likewise,’ he said gravely. ‘You are formidable. So passionate.’
‘Thanks.’ She blushed. Her heart glowed at the recognition. Positively beamed through her chest wall. ‘And you know, it felt amazing. It’s rare for me to ever feel so—hot. It was truly liberating. It must have been the reaction to all the stress.’
‘I’m so happy the stress worked for you,’ he said smoothly, his eyes glinting.
She guessed Frenchwomen, being so mysterious and sophisticated, didn’t confess their feelings after sex.
‘Well, there was that other time too, of course. My first actual …’ She screeched to a halt in the bare nick of time.
His lifted an eyebrow. ‘Your first …?’
‘Boathouse. I recall feeling pretty well piping hot there.’
Heavens, time to shut the heck up. She’d brushed pretty close to giving away her fatal flaw. Knowing she was back in the orgasmic hot zone though, so to speak, was fantastically motivating. After her rocky start this morning, she could hardly believe she’d achieved this marvellous and formidable feeling of heavenly freedom and pleasantness.
After a moment he said, ‘But you must have known many other occasions when you felt so piping hot, having been engaged?’
‘Oh, sure. Of course, of course.’ She gave her hand an airy wave. ‘Although …’ She hesitated, and added with a self-conscious flutter, ‘Well … The conditions can’t always be perfect, can they?’
‘They can’t?’
‘Well, I don’t know how a man feels, but I guess a woman needs to feel—admired.’
He drew his brows in a frown. ‘But Rémy admired you, d’accord? He asked you to marry him.’
‘Not marry, exactly. Just—to get engaged. Marriage was to be in the