Mistress Bought and Paid For. Lynne Graham

skin with lips and tongue, lingering in sensitive places, forcing a driven moan from her. Bending her back with astonishing ease over his arm, he pushed the T-shirt out of his path and glided his fingers up over her taut and quivering ribcage to curve his hand to a tiny pouting white breast. Her spine arched and she jerked as if she had been electrified. The brush of his thumb over the swollen and sensitive tip was a source of seething pleasure. The sound of her own choked cry of response catapulted her back to renewed awareness of her surroundings.

      ‘For goodness’ sake…no!’she gasped, pulling away and throwing herself off the desk in such a panic that she overbalanced and went down on her knees on the carpet. He stretched down a hand to help her rise again, but she scrambled up under her own steam and backed away fast. She was in as much shock as if she had been in an accident and her body felt heavy and clumsy and achingly disappointed.

      ‘Per meraviglia…you could have broken your ankle.’ Cristiano surveyed her with smouldering intensity and a frown of reproof.

      Lydia was all the more shaken by the subtle shift in his manner. All of a sudden his tone was more intimate, possessive. He had kissed her and touched her, and she had encouraged him, and now he was telling her off.

      Cristiano elevated a dark brow. ‘Why are you so skittish? What’s the deal? If the nervous virgin act is supposed to be sexy, it’s not working, so you can drop it now.’

      ‘I’m not putting on an act!’ Shame and mortification blazed through her slender length like a burning flame. In her mind it was one thing to submit, but quite another to enjoy being touched by him to such an extent that she had had to knot her fingers into fists by her sides. Desire was in her like a cruel enemy, eager to betray her. And she could not win such a battle, nor even wish in the circumstances that she could. Suddenly she felt as trapped as if she had been put in a dungeon behind a solid steel door.

      Pale as milk, she shot him an appalled glance from vivid blue eyes. ‘I can’t do this…I can’t!’