‘Put me down!’ He had removed his jacket earlier, and her hand inadvertently slipped beneath the collar of his shirt. She could feel the heat of his bare skin beneath her fingertips, and she saw the wicked glint in his dark eyes.
‘Put...put me down!’ she reiterated sharply as he mounted the stairs, but he ignored her plea. She tried to struggle but it was no contest. He was so much bigger and so much more determined.
He strode along the landing and straight into the bedroom, where he dropped her unceremoniously down in the middle of the bed. ‘Now, Josie, tell me what’s gone wrong. You were all sweetness and light last night and this morning. But this evening you’ve been like a cat on a hot tin roof. What’s changed?’ he demanded hardily.
‘Nothing.’ She swallowed hard and tried to sit up, but Conan stopped her by placing his large hands on her shoulders and pushing her back against the pillows. His long body stretched out on the bed beside her.
‘Will you let me up?’ She pushed ineffectually at his chest.
‘No.’
This morning she had dreamed of Conan in her bed, but now it was a reality she was horrified. She glanced frantically around the room; her eyes alighting on the door to Conan’s room. ‘Does Jeffrey know we don’t sleep together? ’ she blurted out then couldn’t believe she’d said it.
Conan rolled over her. Leaning on his elbows, he cradled her head in his hands. ‘What made you ask that now? You’ve never been curious before.’
‘I just wondered,’ she breathed, lifting her hands to his chest in an attempt to push him away.
‘Well, don’t. Jeffrey does not know. I’m a very tidy man. I make the bed myself before he arrives in the morning. A male ego thing. I do have some pride.’
‘Oh.’ She blushed; it had been a stupid question, but, worse, the warmth of his body, the weight of his long leg slung over hers, trapping her beneath him, and the attractive face with the beginnings of a five-o’clock shadow only inches from her own, were playing havoc with her overstretched emotions.
‘“Oh”? Is that all you have to say?’ he prompted, his long fingers stroking through her hair. ‘At my magnificent sacrifice?’ he murmured against her ear.
Josie swallowed hard; she had an overwhelming urge to taste the brown satin skin of his throat only inches away from her mouth. Instead she mumbled idiotically, ‘Thank you.’ Her fingers splayed over his chest in another attempt to push him away.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ Conan’s dark eyes glittered. He knew perfectly well how he affected her and took full advantage of the fact. ‘A freely given kiss might be some compensation,’ he suggested huskily.
He was deliberately teasing her, she knew, and for a second anger overcame her common sense. ‘Only a kiss?’ she charged, wondering what Angela had given him, sure that it had not stopped at a kiss. Arching one delicately shaped brow, she added provocatively, ‘You’re cheap!’ Lifting her head, she pressed her lips to his mouth. One kiss and she would be rid of him, was her last clear thought.
Her eyes fluttered closed as she opened her mouth to the pressure of his and their tongues met and stroked. The feel of his hard body sent shock waves of sensual awareness shuddering through her. She forgot about Angela, Charles, everything, as warmth spread from the pit of her stomach to flood her slender body with a delicious sensual lethargy she had never known existed before.
Her hands lingered on his chest, and instead of pushing him away she began exploring intimately under his open shirt, entangling her fingers in his crisp body hair with tactile pleasure. Something so fantastic could not be wrong...
She heard his sigh—or was it a groan?—and opened her eyes. The room was in shadow, the bedside lamp casting a small pool of light around the large bed. Josie stared up at Conan, her huge violet eyes luminous with an expression as old as Eve that she was completely unaware of. Conan was watching her, waiting, his huge body strangely tense.
‘You said you were tired, Josie; perhaps I should help you undress?’ he offered, and, leaning up on one elbow, he slipped his other hand under the shoulder strap of her dress. ‘Tell me, do you want me?’ he paused. ‘To help you?’ he asked throatily.
What on earth was she doing? The question lingered in her mind for all of a second. Then Conan’s large hand splayed over her naked shoulder, his long fingers idly caressing her soft skin. She trembled but recognised the unspoken question in the fiery depths of his dark eyes. ‘Yes, please,’ she murmured, knowing fully well what she was inviting as her fingers, on a voyage of discovery of their own, slid down his chest and tried to unfasten the remaining buttons
of his shirt.
‘Allow me,’ he said huskily. ‘I want to look at you.’ In one lithe movement he shrugged off his shirt and gently pushed her dress down to her waist, exposing her naked breasts to his gaze.
‘You are perfect, absolutely perfect!’ Conan groaned, and, lowering his huge body over her, he gently rubbed his broad chest against her achingly sensitive breasts, while his tongue flicked teasingly around the outline of her mouth. Josie’s lips parted, begging his kiss, and, unable to resist her offer, his mouth closed over hers in erotic possession.
She felt his welcoming weight move restlessly against her, the heat of his body scorching through her, melting any lingering inhibitions. Her hands curved around his back and traced the indent of his spine, while Conan, with his lips and tongue, encouraged her to take her fill of him. The outside world ceased to exist; they were encapsulated in their secret world of the senses. Josie gave herself up to the pleasure only Conan could arouse in her.
He broke the kiss to trail a line of tiny kisses down her throat to the soft curve of her breasts. Her breasts hardened beneath the gentle flick of his tongue, aching for a more intimate caress. Instead Conan drew back, and she almost cried out in frustration, but he was not to be hurried.
His eyes gleamed golden with desire as he gazed down at the twin creamy globes, the rosy tips dark and rigid. ‘For such a small girl you are remarkably well endowed,’ he said raggedly, and with one long finger he traced slowly, seductively around the aureole.
A deep shudder streaked from her breast to her thighs, her body arching under him. Her small hand gripped his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh. But with the same slow deliberation he gently caressed her other breast. Josie had never in her life imagined such exquisite pleasure. ‘Conan,’ she moaned, helpless beneath his sensual expertise.
‘I think you like that, Josie.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, unconscious of how erotically exciting her frantic cry was to Conan.
‘And this even more,’ he growled, his head dipping and his mouth closing over the rigid tip of her breast.