The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ sister’s face, she knew, would haunt her for the rest of her life.

      ‘I think there’s always more to the story than there first appears,’ she said quietly, coming to perch on the edge of his desk. ‘You told me leaving felt necessary at the time, but you didn’t tell me why.’

      He glanced down at the papers on his desk. ‘I didn’t think we had that sort of relationship.’

      Her breath hitched and she willed it to even out again. ‘We didn’t. But—but maybe we do now. Or at least, we’re trying to.’

      He glanced up at her then, everything about him inscrutable. Fathomless. ‘Are we?’

      Liana stared back at him, words on her lips and fear in her heart. This was the moment when she should show her hand, she knew. Her heart. Tell him that in the few days since they’d been married she’d started to change. He’d changed her, and now she wanted things she’d never let herself want. Affection. Friendship. Love.

      The words were there and they trembled on her lips but then the fear of exposing so much want and need made her swallow them and offer a rather watery smile instead.

      ‘You tell me.’

      Wrong answer, she knew. A coward’s answer. Sandro looked away. ‘I don’t know, Liana. I don’t know what secrets you’re hiding, or why you’ve, as you said yourself, experienced so little of life. It’s almost as if you’ve kept yourself from it, from enjoying or feeling anything, and I won’t know why or understand you until you tell me.’ He glanced back at her then, his expression settled into resolute lines. ‘But I’m not even sure you really want that. You told me you married me because of the opportunities being queen would give this charity of yours. Has that changed?’

      She swallowed. ‘No, not exactly.’ Sandro’s expression tightened and he started shuffling his papers into piles. ‘But I’ve changed, Sandro, at least a little. I want to get to know you. And I hope you want to know me.’ And that, Liana thought with a weary wryness, was about as honest as she could make herself be right now.

      Sandro gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘And how do you propose we do that?’

      ‘Get to know one another, you mean?’ She licked her lips, saw Sandro’s gaze drop to her mouth, and felt warmth curling low in her belly. ‘Well...as we have been doing. Talking. Spending time with one another.’

      ‘We can talk all you like, but until you tell me whatever it is you’re keeping from me, I don’t think much is going to change.’

      ‘But I told you I’ve already changed,’ she said quietly. ‘A little, at least. You’ve changed me.’

      ‘Have I?’ Sandro asked softly. He was still staring at her mouth and Liana felt a heavy languor begin to steal through her veins, making her feel almost drunk, reckless in a way she so rarely was. ‘I can think of another way we could get to know one another,’ she whispered.

      He arched an eyebrow, heat flaring in his eyes, turning them to molten silver. ‘And what would that be?’

      ‘This.’ She leaned forward, her heart thudding hard, and brushed her lips across his.

      His mouth was cool and soft, his lips only barely parted, and he didn’t respond as she’d expected him to, pulling her in his arms and taking control. No, he was waiting to see what she would do. How far she would go.

      Emboldened, Liana touched her tongue to the corner of Sandro’s mouth, heard his groan, felt it in the soft rush of breath against her own lips. Desire bit deeper, and she brought her hands up to his shoulders, steadying herself on the edge of his desk as she kissed him again, slid her tongue into his mouth with a surge of pure sexual excitement she thrilled to feel.

      ‘Liana...’ Sandro’s hands tangled in her hair as he fastened his mouth more securely on hers, taking the kiss from her and making it his. Theirs.

      And what a kiss it was. Liana could easily count the number of times she’d been kissed, half of them by Sandro, but this kiss was something else entirely. This kiss was shared, a giving and a taking and most of all an admission. A spilling of secrets, a confession of desire.

      It felt like the most honest thing she’d ever done.

      And then it was more than a kiss as Sandro swept all his papers aside and hauled her across the desk. She came willingly, sliding onto his lap, her legs on either side of him as she felt the hard, insistent press of his arousal against her and pleasure spiked deep inside.

      Sandro deepened the kiss, his hands moving over her, cupping her breasts, the thin cotton of her sundress already too much between them. In that moment she wasn’t afraid of her own feelings, the strength of her own desire—and his. She just wanted more.

      Recklessly Liana pulled the dress over her head and tossed it to the floor. Sandro’s gaze darkened with heat and then she unclasped her bra and sent it flying too. She was wearing only her panties, and even that felt like too much clothing.

      ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered huskily as his hands roved over her. ‘Your skin is like marble.’

      A small smile twitched her lips. ‘Like a statue?’

      He glanced up at her, his hands now cupping her breasts, his thumbs brushing over their taut peaks. ‘Like Venus de Milo.’ And then he put his mouth to her breasts and if she were a statue she came alive under him, writhing and gasping as he teased her with his tongue and lips.

      She tangled her hands in his hair, arching her back and pressing against him, gasping aloud when he flexed his hips upwards and she felt the promise of what was to come, of what it would feel like to have him inside her, to be part of him. She wanted it now.

      Sandro let out a shaky groan. ‘Not here, Liana. Let me take you to bed—’

      ‘Why do we need a bed?’ she murmured and she slid his hands up his bare chest, fingers spreading across hot skin and hard muscle.

      ‘Your first time—’

      ‘Are there rules about a woman’s first time? Does it have to be on a bed, with roses and violins?’

      He let out a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t have any roses at the moment—’

      ‘I don’t actually like roses.’ She pressed against him, muscles she hadn’t known she had tightening, quivering. ‘Or violins.’

      ‘Even so—’

      ‘I want this.’ She might not be able to be honest about everything yet, but she could be honest about this. About this real, rushing desire she felt. ‘I want you. And I want you here, now, just like this.’

      He eased away from her, but only to hold her face in his palms and search her expression. She stared back, firm in her purpose, clear-headed even in the midst of the haze of sexual desire. ‘You want me,’ he said slowly, almost wonderingly, and she leaned forward so her breasts brushed his chest and her lips touched his.

      ‘I want you,’ she whispered against his mouth, and then she kissed him again, another honest kiss, deeper this time, drawing everything from him even as she gave it back.

      She’d never grow tired of this, she thought hazily as Sandro СКАЧАТЬ