Untamed Billionaires: Marriage: For Business or Pleasure? / Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue / One Night with the Rebel Billionaire

She cried out his name as a part-plea, part-warning; she couldn’t take much more of this, needed him inside her now.

‘I’m right here.’

With a swift rip of unzipping metal and a rustle of tearing foil, he was back, pushing against her, holding her hips and angling them forward as he nudged against her entrance.

‘Nick, please…’

He drove into her, hard and fast and heart-stoppingly long, the exquisite pressure filling her, tantalising her.

She’d waited so long for this, had dreamed about it, and when he started to pull out and thrust back into her, again and again and again, the sheer intense beauty of it robbed her of breath, of reason.

‘Britt, my Britt.’

His possessiveness thrilled her as much as his hands gripping her hips, tilting them to increase the tempting friction as he plunged into her repeatedly, his rhythm driving them both towards a shattering climax.

‘Wow,’ she breathed on a sigh, her entire body humming and thrumming and sated as she sagged against him, her head lolling against his shoulder.

His barely audible oath had her head jerking up as she spun around to face him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘This. Here.’

He gestured around the kitchen before dropping his gaze to her bunched skirt and thong around her knees, shaking his head. ‘You deserve more than this.’

Mustering what little dignity a woman with her knickers around her knees could have, she wriggled back into her thong before jabbing him in the chest.

‘Don’t you dare apologise for the best sex I’ve ever had. It was perfect. Better than perfect, it was stupendous.’

The corners of his wickedly sexy mouth kicked up. ‘The best, huh?’

She nodded emphatically. ‘The best.’

His grin widened. ‘So you like a guy so out of control he can’t make it to the bedroom?’

Grabbing his lapels, she hauled him close until their noses almost touched.

‘Not just any guy, I like you, Nick Mancini. Every delicious bad-boy inch of you.’

‘I love it when you talk dirty to me.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘I know.’

He chuckled, rubbed noses with her as he stroked her back, long, languid strokes that relaxed her, and she rested her cheek on his chest, inhaling his seductive scent.

‘Do you think it’s ironic we’re back here where it all started?’

She pulled away, glanced up at him. ‘You mean my first time?’

He nodded, caressed her cheek with a tenderness that stole her breath and warmed her heart.

‘I wanted to make it special for you then too. So what happened? The oven was on the blink so the pizza was cold, the dessert wouldn’t defrost and I sprayed cola all over you.’

She smiled at the memories. ‘That night was special, and it was all because of you.’

Her fingertips skimmed his jaw, savouring the faint prickle of stubble before hovering over his lips, tracing their outline. ‘You were incredible, and I’ve never forgotten that night.’

Or the few months after it, when they’d sneak down to the river to make love underneath the towering eucalypts or beneath the beautiful jacarandas.

To this day, she couldn’t walk past a jacaranda without blushing, its unique fragrance a poignant reminder of Nick laying her on a carpet of purple blossoms and taking her to the heavens and back.

‘I say we recreate the magic. Though this time, we might even make it to the bedroom. You in?’

Excitement trickled through her body, fast becoming a raging torrent as she nodded and he swept her into his arms and headed for his old bedroom.

‘I’m definitely in,’ she said, laughing out loud when he twirled her around a few times before bumping the door open with his hip.

‘Good, because if you’d said no I would’ve dropped you.’

Nipping the skin beneath his jaw, she nuzzled him. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Never dare a rebel,’ he said, dumping her on the bed before joining her, their laughter surrounding them in lovely warmth.

‘Oh, wow.’

She glanced around the room, at the wooden shelves stacked high with trophies, several motorbike helmets in one corner, old leather jackets in the other.

‘This room hasn’t changed.’

He shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. ‘I never stay out here. My life’s in Noosa now. I guess Papa was too busy running the place when he was alive to worry about changing the bedrooms.’

Did he know his voice changed when he spoke of his father? Deepened? Softened? As if caught up in good times.

She envied him that, had always envied him the easy, close relationship he’d shared with his dad. It was one of the reasons she’d liked hanging out here so much; that and the mean lasagne Papa used to cook.

‘I love this place. Do you really need to sell?’

A momentary shadow clouded his eyes before he blinked and it vanished.

‘It’s not fair to let it run down. And I just don’t have the time to do much out here.’

‘Why don’t you hire a manager? Farm hands? Get the plantation up and running again?’

He shook his head, the tiny indentation between his brows a sign she was butting into business that was no concern of hers.

‘You know what this place meant to Papa.’

He didn’t have to add ‘and to me’. She could see his reluctance to sell in his clenched jaw, in his rigid neck muscles, could hear it in his tense tone.