Sex by stealth.
He allowed himself a smile as his hand found her shoulder, cupping it, enjoying the contrast of toned flesh and bone under his hand as his mouth once again met hers. Even in sleep her movements mimicked his, wanting to participate, trying to hold on longer to the fantasy. His tongue traced the line of her mouth, and she shuddered beneath him, turning the kiss electric. ‘Oh, yes,’ she gasped into his mouth on a sigh.
Her breathing was quickening, and he lifted his head, half-surprised at the jolt he’d just experienced, half-expecting that first flicker of wakefulness, because he knew she’d felt it too. But still it didn’t come, despite the firmed breasts and jutting nipples, despite the noticeable shallow hitch to her breathing. She was dreaming about sex, he could tell, imagining a lover who visited deep in the night and made her every wish come true.
He growled and gave a smile. Only too soon she would open those eyes and discover he was real. What colour would those eyes be? he wondered absently as he ran his fingertips along the curve of her collarbone. Brown, he decided, his fingers dipping into the space between them. They would have to be brown with her colouring. His hand made the return journey, his fingers spread wider this time so that his thumb scooped across the rise of her breasts.
This time she moaned, arching her back and shifting fractionally in her sleep, sending her bed clothes lower, exposing a hint of curvy waist above the sensual flare of hips. Honey-smooth skin, gleaming in the lowlight. His mouth went dry. Even asleep and unknowing she was an invitation. How much more so would she be when awake?
The ache in his groin turned more insistent, more demanding, the beast alive, wanting and hungry. Then she murmured something—a name, almost an entreaty. Richard?
Suddenly his little game lost appeal. Half of him wanted to take his time and play this game for all it was worth, to explore every curve and hollow of her flesh, to savour the secret pleasure while he waited for her to awaken, but the other half of him craved release. Release, followed by blessed sleep. The last thing he wanted was her thinking of someone else while he made love to her. He wanted her awake. He wanted her to realize just who it was making love to her, and then he’d proceed to obliterate every trace of ‘Richard’ from her memory.
And there would be time enough to explore later. Now it was time for business. His fingers scooped down her chest. Right now her breasts were at the top of his agenda.
‘Time you woke up, Goldilocks,’ he said, before his mouth descended on one perfect nipple.
The dream was back. Her night caller was here again—the one who spoke to Mackenzi not with words but with heated lips and sweet caresses, the dark stranger who drugged her with sensuality and reassured her that she was desirable and warm and all woman. The one who made her want to believe it.
And tonight he seemed more persuasive, more convincing and more real than ever.
But it was a dream—it was always a dream—and she knew the rules; that if she opened her eyes her dream lover would vanish and it would be over. And yet for just a dream her senses were buzzing, her pulse racing, and she wished more than anything that for once it was more than just a dream—because tonight she felt like a real woman, and because she wanted to believe, more than anything, what he was telling her.
So, so much!
She felt his fingers stroking her hair and her face, setting her skin tingling. She felt his lips pressed gently on her own, she even imagined she could feel his warm breath on her face.
So real.
So real that, she wondered, would tonight be the night? Or would her dream lover flee once more before the dawn and leave her tossing and turning, damp and slickened with sweat, yet still unfulfilled, and doubting herself more than ever?
And, worst of all, believing that what Richard had told her must be true.
That she was no kind of lover at all.
That she was frigid.
She drifted then, on a sea of sensation and unearthly pleasures, wondering vaguely why her mystery lover would return for a repeat performance if she was, wondering why only he seemed to unleash such unfamiliar passion in her. She sizzled inside now, as her mystery lover’s lips moved over hers, and heat became electric as she felt the dart of moist flesh zip from one side of her mouth to the other. She trembled under the caress, imagining that this time she could even taste him, while she willed his attentions on further. Further south. Where her need was building in an increasingly desperate ache.
If he could make her tremble like that by nothing more than a mere touch of his lips, what more could he do by moving his attention to other, more demanding locations?
She gave herself up to the sensations spiralling down her body, the sensual drug taking control as a familiar unfairness echoed once more through her senses. Richard. How was it that he had never elicited anywhere near such a physical response in her as her dream lover? Had it really been all her fault?
And then nothing mattered—not Richard, or her questions or her self-doubts. Her heart was beating so loudly now, her pulse a sensual drumbeat that turned to a throb deep down inside and drowned out such plaguing thoughts. If her dream lover could make her feel so good, so real, even just for the moment, then who cared? Not her. She just wanted to enjoy for as long as it lasted.
Sound outside her heartbeat interrupted her thoughts— a voice, and words that made no sense, tumbling together into fairy tales and nonsense—and then all was silent apart from her groan as she felt his tongue circle her nipple, sending flaming arrows deep down inside. From somewhere in the passion-blinded recesses of her mind it occurred to her: her dream lover had never spoken before, not with words.
Fear shimmied up her spine as she pushed away at the remnants of sleep, still at war with herself, torn between not wanting to do anything to banish her dream lover, and yet knowing that this time was different—that tonight something was majorly out of step.
Jagged lightning hastened her ascent, and she opened her eyes to a booming roll of thunder that made the building shake around her. Yet it was nothing compared to the thunderclap of finding his dark head at her breast.
It wasn’t a dream! The sensual web that had wound itself around her while she’d slept was no figment of her imagination, her arousal no fantasy. This man—and what he was doing to her—was shockingly real.
She cried out something garbled and panicked, jerking herself away, her hands reaching for the bed clothes and dragging them higher.
‘Good morning, Goldilocks, I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.’ His voice soothed, even as what felt like a steel band clamped around her, anchoring her to the bed. But she couldn’t have moved a muscle, even if she’d tried, not when another bolt of lightning lit up the room and the face of her dream lover with it.
A moment of frozen shock turned into a chill of abject horror, for even after the lightning had passed and the room plunged back into darkness, the lines and planes of the face hovering close remained boldly etched in her mind’s eye. The lines and planes of a face she knew only too well.
‘Dante!’
The very man with the power of life and death over the hotel. The very man she’d sworn to fight tooth and nail to ensure he wouldn’t destroy this property and the livelihoods of all who worked within it.
It hadn’t been a dream.
And the reality was far, far worse.
It was a nightmare.
He gave what looked in the gloom like a predatory smile, full of dark meaning and sinful intent, and she felt her insides lurch. He touched the back of the fingers of one hand to her cheek and against her better judgement it was all she could do not to lean into his electric touch. ‘I never would have guessed,’ he said cryptically,