MELANIE MILBURNE – Mistress: Taming the Playboy: Constantine's Defiant Mistress / Androletti's Mistress / Valenti's One-Month Mistress (страница 20)

Laura bit her lip as she carried out a dish of almonds to the table. Was there any scenario more potentially heartbreaking than the one which lay ahead of her?

CHAPTER NINE

A CRACK of light slanted across the floor as the door opened, and Laura held her breath as she saw the dark and formidable shape of Constantine standing silhouetted there. If he thought she was sleeping, would he creep away again? she wondered. Would he remember that she had been working and perhaps might need her rest? Spare her this sensual ordeal which she suspected might open the door to a terrible kind of heartache? And yet her heart was pounding so hard that she was certain he must be able to hear its frantic beat.

A low laugh beside the bed put paid to her half-hearted hopes. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to believe you are asleep do you, ghlikos mou?’ he questioned softly.

She heard the rasp of a zip, and then the soft thump of something slithering to the ground—presumably his jeans—before a rush of air to her skin as he peeled the sheet away from her body and climbed into bed. Laura trembled as she felt that first contact with his warm, muscular flesh.

‘You’re … naked,’ she breathed.

‘What did you expect?’ With comfortable assurance he hooked his arms around her and drew her close, the glitter of his eyes discernible in the moonlight, his breath warm on her face. ‘Ah … perhaps you wanted to watch me strip?’

‘I ….’ His easy provocation left her feeling cheated and out of her depth. He does this kind of thing all the time, she reminded herself—and he has no idea that it’s been eight long years since you slept with a man. This man. Had she mistakenly hoped that there might be some kind of wooing, and that he might be gentle with her? Perhaps taking her tenderly in his arms and tossing her a few compliments, before beginning a slow lovemaking? Was she crazy?

‘Meanwhile, you … are most definitely not naked,’ he murmured, as he skated his hand down over one cotton-covered hip, and she heard the faint deprecation in his voice. ‘Shame on you, Laura—I cannot believe you always wear something this unflattering in bed when you make an assignation with your lover.’

She guessed that now was not the time to tell him that this was her first such assignation. But she realised that Constantine hadn’t been expecting a reply—his question had merely been the precursor to skimming the nightie up and over her head, and tossing it over the side of the bed like a flag of surrender. She shivered as her nakedness was revealed.

‘Cold?’ he murmured, as his lips found the line of her jaw and began to whisper along its curve.

‘N-no.’

‘Surely not scared?’

Scared? She was terrified—because didn’t sex play havoc with a woman’s emotions? And weren’t hers already see-sawing their way towards chaos and a terrible feeling of vulnerability? But she shook her head, unwilling to admit to fear or doubt or anything else which might put her at even more of a disadvantage in his arms.

‘Good.’ He lifted his hand to smooth some of the fine mass of pale hair away from her face. ‘You see, you have made me wait too long for this, Laura. Much too long … longer than any other woman would have dared or been able to. You have driven me half mad with temptation—do you realise that?’ His voice was unsteady as he drove his mouth down on hers with a hunger so fierce that it made his body shudder, and her hands reached up to cling to him so that even his taunting words about other women were forgotten beneath the power of his kiss.

Constantine groaned as her lips opened eagerly to welcome him and he felt the softness of her breasts. His fingers skimmed her body, reacquainting themselves with all its curves and secret places, luxuriating in the soft, silken feel of her skin—and he groaned again.

He had found the delay before getting into her bed almost unendurable—their snatched and teasing foreplay something he had not experienced since he was a teenager—and it had been compounded by the fact that she was the mother of his child. For once his feelings were less than straightforward—she had captured his imagination as well as his desire. But in the sweetness of the moment all that was forgotten, and now she was so compliant beneath his embrace that Constantine knew this was all going to happen very quickly. Too quickly.

And perhaps Laura sensed it too, because she suddenly pulled away from him, her eyes huge in her face.

‘Contraception?’ she whispered. ‘You?’

‘I don’t … have anything.’

Swearing softly in Greek, he reached blindly for the jeans he’d left on the floor until he found a condom. Gingerly he slid it on, and then pulled her soft body back into his arms. ‘Let’s hope it’s a little more reliable than last time,’ he drawled.

Laura stiffened as the impact of his words hit home, and half tried to pull away from him. ‘That’s a hateful thing to say.’

‘You want to hide from the truth? Is that it?’

‘I think there’s a time and a place for everything—and that remark was wrong on just about every level.’

He gave a brief half-smile. ‘You dare to scold me, ghlikos mou?’ Before she could answer, he tipped her chin upwards and stared down at her with erotic intent. ‘But then you dare to do many things which surprise me, Laura. Now, where was I? Was it here?’ He lowered his head until his mouth found the lobe of her ear and whispered over its plump little oval. ‘Or here?’ His lips moved to hers, felt them tremble, and that involuntary little shudder moved him more than it should have done.

He kissed silent her little cries, his greedy fingers exploring her body with a thoroughness which left her gasping—finding her most vulnerable places and tantalising her until he felt her squirm with impatient longing. And her fervour filled him with a strange kind of disquiet, even while it set his senses on fire. ‘Are you always this eager?’ he murmured.

‘Are you?’ she parried.

No, he thought suddenly. No, he was not—but then this was the only woman who had had his child grow within her body. ‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ he said unevenly.

No, it didn’t—and while Laura knew that there was no earthly reason why she should respond, instinct told her that her answer would please him. And why not please him when he was in her arms and in her bed and soon to be in her body?

‘I am only this eager with you,’ she said, her voice dipping a little with sexual shyness. ‘For you are the only lover I have ever known.’

There was a moment of disbelief while he sucked in a ragged breath, and suddenly the power of that thought made him feel momentarily weak—or as weak as Constantine was ever capable of being. ‘The only one?’ he demanded.

‘Yes. And now will you please shut up about it? Or you’ll give me a complex.’

He groaned as she kissed him back, boldly tracing her soft and seeking lips over every inch of his body, and then he gave a low laugh as he took her soft breast in his hand and stroked it.

He held back until he could hold back no longer, and then he touched her once again between the sweet haven of her thighs and felt her quiver with pleasure. Tearing his lips away from hers, he stared down into her face for an infinitesimal moment before—with one long, delicious stroke—he filled her and let out a long moan of pleasure.

The feel of him inside her again after so long was a sweet shock—but Laura barely had time to accommodate him, or to savour the sensation of Constantine moving within her, thrusting deep into her body and deep into her heart. Because all too quickly she was spiralling once more towards that dizzy destination he’d led her to that very afternoon, when he had brought her to orgasm with his fingers. But this was something else. This was the real thing. He was the real thing. Her heart gave a sudden lurch in time with her limbs.

‘Oh, Constantine,’ she cried, and she felt tears spilling from beneath her eyelids. ‘Constantine!’

Smothering her little gasps with his lips, he felt her bucking uncontrollably beneath him, and the spasming of her body sent his own pleasure hurtling right off the radar. He waited until he could wait no longer—until his orgasm took him under completely, instead of his more usual controlled riding it out, like a wave. And the unexpectedness of that surrender momentarily took his breath away.

Afterwards, he felt as though she had taken something from him, but he wasn’t quite sure what. Abruptly he rolled away from her, and lay beside her on the rumpled sheets, staring at the moon-dappled ceiling, waiting for her words—the words that women always said at moments like these, when they were at their weakest. Praise, adoration and undying love—Constantine had heard them all in his time. Words which were his due and yet words he often scorned because of their transparent predictability. Yet Laura said nothing.

He turned his head to look at her—she was lying perfectly still, with her eyes closed and her pale hair spread out like a fine cloud across the pillow. She was so still she might almost have been sleeping—the fading gleam of tears drying on her heated cheeks the only clue as to what had just taken place. She must have sensed that his gaze was on her, yet still she did not open her eyes and look at him.