Mediterranean Tycoons. Michelle Reid

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СКАЧАТЬ where she was.

      Her head had cleared and she felt so much better than she’d felt when she’d come in here. She was hungry too, but the idea of getting up out of the comfortable bed and getting dressed to go out there and face Luc had her turning over in the bed with the intention of staying right where she—

      Shock froze the air in her body when she saw him. He was lying on his front right beside her with his dark head resting on the pillow next to her pillow and his wide naked shoulders glowing bronze in the soft light coming from the lamp on his side of the bed.

      From being completely relaxed to the point of a wonderful bonelessness, she was already in the process of tensing up when she realised he was asleep and she let the tension seep away again on an inner swirl of tingling relief.

      The black satin crescents of his eyelashes were resting peacefully against his high cheekbones and his mouth was the most relaxed she had seen it, its sensual shape all the more beautiful in repose, and his hair was ruffled, revealing a hint of a glossy black wave she hadn’t ever noticed before.

      Held by a curiosity she knew she should not be giving in to, Lizzy let her eyes roam over his arms, thrown up against the pillow, the width of his shoulders and long bronzed back exposed because the duvet had slipped down so low.

      Her fingers scrambled at her own part of the duvet, inching it carefully over her shoulder because his nakedness reminded her about her own near nakedness.

      Was he naked—as in completely naked? The intimacy of the situation struck like a feather being drawn across the surface of her skin. Her nostrils flared and she picked up the warm scent of him, clean yet so irresistibly male it sent the moist tip of her tongue sliding on a slow circuit of her warm lips for a reason she refused to examine.

      And the skin covering the muscles she could see shaping his body wore a sheen that made her think of suntan oil, though she knew the effect was due to his own natural oils conditioning his skin while he slept.

      Her husband, she thought, trying the title out to see how it felt, and still found the concept as alien to her as having the two of them lying here together in this bed.

      ‘Grey,’ a deep, dark, slumberously warm voice murmured.

      Lizzy started, her eyes leaping up to his face. He was awake. She tensed, her fingers gripping the duvet. She would have dived right out of the bed if she weren’t aware that she was wearing the sheerest leaf green bra ever fashioned and matching panties that made a mockery of the name.

      ‘Sexy soft smoky grey—no, don’t move away,’ he said when she went to do just that, and with a lithe shift of his body he rolled onto his side and propped his head on the heel of his hand so he could look down into her wary face and the scented fire flow of her hair where it spread across the pillow.

      ’Bellissima, ’ he chanted softly. ‘La signora bella De Santis. ‘

      ‘No,’ she denied. ‘Will you stop calling me beautiful?’

      ‘Strange creature.’ He smiled, reaching over to stroke the stray curl from her brow. ‘You have the most exquisite face I have ever seen on any woman and the most fascinating determination to deny it. I would love to know why that is.’

      ‘I won’t respond to your kind of flattery—’ the curl flopped back again and Lizzy swiped at it frowningly ‘—just because you…’

      Her voice trailed away, teeth pressing into her bottom lip when she realised what she had been about to say next.

      Moving that bit closer to her so she felt the tingling sting of his chest hair prickle the skin on her arm, he prompted, ‘Because I—what?’

      ‘Because w-we’re married and—here,’ she finished—then shook out an unsteady gasp when one of his legs arrived across both of hers. ‘W-what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

      ‘Getting comfortable with my wife.’

      Her fingers let go of the duvet so she could use them to push him back again, but it came as a tingling shock to her racing senses to feel the solid heat of his muscled body and the crisp warmth of his chest hair prickle against her palms. The whole situation was a tingling shock, she decided, snared by the living warmth of his leg weighing heavy on hers and the expression in his eyes as he continued to look down at her, tender and soft and still sleepy enough to make those shadowing eyelashes diffuse the hunter-like gleam from the gold.

      She could even feel the steady beat of his heart where he pressed against her arm. He leant down and kissed her, not passionately or anything, just light and gently, yet she still jerked her head back, feeling besieged by his heat and his strength and his close proximity.

      ‘Stop panicking,’ he chided softly. ‘I am not here to hurt you.’

      ‘But I don’t—’

      ‘And it is customary that you kiss the man you wake up with.’

      He was expecting her to kiss him? No way, she thought, and gave him her response with a shake of her head.

      ‘You mean you expect me to do the kissing? Not very fair of you, cara, but—okay,’ he said, and his mouth found hers again, only this time he traced the outline of her lips with his tongue, then gently probed between until she gave in and parted them for him. She let him taste her with a sensual slowness, her breath trapped in her chest. By the time he pulled away again her heart was thumping heavily and her lips trembled in protest at the loss of his.

      ‘Not a bad way to start the new day,’ he murmured.

      ‘It—it’s still dark out there,’ Lizzy managed to whisper.

      ‘But past midnight,’ he said, drawing back a little to rest his head on the heel of his hand again. ‘You were asleep for hours. You missed our first dinner together as man and wife and left me alone to contemplate the folly in urging my temperate bride to knock back brandy like a fully-fledged alcoholic.’

      Lizzy flushed. ‘Being unused to drinking brandy does not make me temperate.’

      ‘Intemperate, then?’

      Meaning she’d behaved like a hot-headed fool? He was probably right, she accepted reluctantly.

      ‘Well, I’m hungry now,’ she said with what she congratulated herself as sounding near normal with her heart still thumping against her ribs. ‘S-so if you would just move your leg away I’ll get up and…’

      Her voice faded into nothing at the slow shake of his head. ‘Relax,’ he encouraged. ‘I am not going to seal our wedding vows here in this very unromantic place, but I do want some more of what we have been sharing…a lot more,’ he husked as he lowered his head again, and this time there was nothing slow or gentle about it.

      His mouth claimed her mouth with deep, sweet, sensual male hunger, and he pressed her back into the pillows with the weight of his body, driving the breath from her lungs. Heat poured into every skin cell, the taste and the scent of him and the ravishing passion making her lose her death grip on the duvet so her hands could clutch at him for dear life.

      His husky assurance that he was not going to turn this into something she wasn’t ready for gave her the excuse she needed to just let go of restraint and she began kissing him back with an eager fervour, СКАЧАТЬ