When they reached the top of the stairs, she kicked off her commentary.
“There’s four bedrooms on this floor, each with their own sitting room. There are two more bedrooms downstairs as well as a separate quarters on the grounds for live-in staff.”
He was ducking his head around a bedroom doorway. “This looks nice.”
Natalie followed. The guest room. Her favourite room.
“It was newly decorated before the Quintons left for overseas.” She was drawn by the smell of freshly laid carpet and breathtaking scenery visible beyond the fall of exquisitely designed pelmets and drapes. “These views are as stunning as the main bedroom’s.” In fact, better, she thought. “You can see the bridge from here, the long blue stretch of harbour. And the breeze through these windows when they’re open—”
A click sounded at her back. Her stomach fluttered and she swung around.
The door was shut and Alex was strolling toward her, his step deliberate. The gait of a man in no doubt about what he wants or to what lengths he’ll go to attain it.
Natalie slid back one foot. “Alex, what are you doing?”
“The contract, once signed, is unconditional. This house, this bedroom, is as good as mine.”
Quivering at the hungry gleam in his eye, she backed up more. “This is inappropriate.”
“That’s an interesting word. I’d have said inevitable.”
Of course she’d known he’d planned this ambush of sorts. However, “If you think I’ll let you undress me, here, in the middle of the day—”
“And make love to you long and hard?” He undid a shirt button. “Yes, carino, I think you’ll let me.”
The back of her legs hit the bed. He joined her and, without invitation, pulled the single clip from her hair then unzipped the back of her dress. Her more rational side silently protested, but she didn’t stop him. Simply stated, at her most basic level, she wanted this and Alexander knew it as well as she did.
“You honestly don’t have any shame, do you.”
He peeled the dress from her shoulders. “Not where you’re concerned.”
He kissed her deeply and when her mind was wheeling, he skimmed his mouth down her neck, her cleavage, until his teeth grazed the gauzy fabric of her lace crop top bra. She bit back a cry as her nipples hardened against his mouth and her dress fell in a puddle at her feet.
His fingers wound into the scarlet lace and, in one fluid movement, he stripped the top up over her head. With obvious appreciation, he took time to study her breasts, weighing their fall as the pads of his thumbs brushed and teased the tips. When his head lowered again and his tongue twirled over one burning nipple, then the next, she sighed and her neck rocked back.
She was on fire.
Eyes drifting shut, she held his head in place. “Is the door locked?”
“No.”
He sucked the sensitive bead fully into his mouth and a searing fountain fizzed through her veins. Still, her gaze edged toward the door.
“This doesn’t feel right.”
“Liar.” As if he owned her—and at that moment he did—he scooped his hand down the front of her lace hipster shorts. “We always feel right together.”
His other hand supporting her spine, he tipped her back and she sank into the silky spread. One knee on the mattress, he took hold of her last item of clothing. His absorbed gaze travelled all the way up her perpendicular legs to her pointing toes as he eased her hipsters off.
He brought her feet down and set them on the mattress a little apart. When a feather-light kiss brushed her inside thigh, she involuntarily bucked and whimpered.
She felt so alight. And exposed.
“At least draw the curtains.”
He chuckled, a deep throated sound that let her know he was enjoying her show of modesty.
“You know I love your body. The way you feel, the way you look.” The warm tip of his tongue trailed across her bikini line. “The way you taste.”
When his mouth dipped more and he kissed her there, tenderly at first then more boldly, she arched and reached to knot her fingers in his hair.
He knew her weakness. Knew how to make her fly.
She hadn’t had many lovers, but she knew enough to be certain his style was natural, a talent that was as innate as soaring and hunting were to a hawk. When he touched her, loved her, her cares evaporated into mist. Where they were didn’t matter. She only longed to feel his hard heat pressed close.
She wove her fingers through his silky hair. “When are you going to take your clothes off and join me?”
His only reply was the skilled attention of his circling tongue.
She sighed.
No one had a right to be this good.
The spiral climbed quickly and she wet her lips. “Alex…come up here.”
His hands wove up her stomach and sculpted over her breasts, his thumbs and forefingers rolling until the concentrated sensations were so bright and powerful she could have wept. Her head lolling to the side, she groaned as her core compressed tighter around a deepening pulse.
Then, for two suspended beats, there was that eye-of-the-storm calm before her climax ignited and flung her to the stars. Biting her lip to stem a cry, she gripped the quilt at her sides as her mind and body exploded with raw pleasure that seemed to go on forever.
When finally the contractions wavered and began to die, drained, elated, tingling and never more sated, she didn’t have the energy to move. She was barely aware that he’d left her until she dragged open her eyes.
He stood watching her, telling her with his eyes that she was his. Only his.
She held out her arms to him. He kicked off his shoes, discarded his clothes and extracted a condom from his wallet. When they were protected, he threw back half the quilt and scooped her up in his arms.
“This will be our room,” he said, laying her on the cool sheet and nuzzling into the sweep of her neck.
When his body covered hers, she jumped, still so sensitive as he slid partway in and began to move.
He pressed a lingering kiss to her brow. “You will wear my ring.”
Looping her legs around his thighs, she ran her fingertips over the hot damp mound of his back. “I can’t think now.”
“I don’t want you to think. I want you to feel.”
He thrust again, bumping her closer to a second orgasm. “My ring, Natalie.”
Whether it was his bone-melting heat sliding against her or the dark-chocolate voice at her ear, in that moment he convinced her. This was their house, their new beginning. She did feel, and she felt wonderful. So utterly right she was dizzy with the magic of it.
She groaned as that spiral rose higher, squeezed tighter.
“Yes,” she murmured.
Please, just…
Yes.
His mouth slanted over hers.
As fireworks flared again, she held him close and let the tidal wave swallow them both whole.
Chapter Six
After returning to work for a couple of