Mediterranean Tycoons

‘Good.’ And, reaching into the cupboard she had left open, he withdrew two glasses. ‘I will deal with the wine and let you get the cutlery we need. Everything else is provided.’

‘Fine. Do you want to eat here?’ she asked, glancing at the fold-down table and two stools against one wall of the kitchen, where she usually ate, and then back to Zac. She grimaced. If he stretched his arms out again he could reach from wall to wall.

‘It is a bit cramped, but it is either here or the living room.’

‘The living room,’ he decided, and, swinging on his heels, walked out of the kitchen.

Sally opened a drawer and withdrew knives, forks and spoons, wondering what she had let herself in for. She had let her guilt at lashing out at Zac override her common sense and agreed to him staying. Now she was not so sure. He disturbed her on so many levels. He had barged his way into her home uninvited, and yet the memory of the steamy kiss they had shared in the car still lingered. And if she was honest she would not mind repeating the experience. Anyway, what harm could it do to share a meal with him?

An hour later, licking her lips after finishing off dessert—a perfect Tiramisu—Sally was confident there had been no harm at all…

Actually, it had been a great meal. When she’d exited the kitchen with the plates and cutlery, Zac had already filled the occasional table with an assortment of dishes: delicious pasta, fresh crusty bread and Veal Milanese, as well as salad and the dessert.

He had got the food from his favourite Italian restaurant, owned by a friend of his, he’d told her, and had made her laugh with stories of the proprietor and his family. Then he’d opened a bottle of wine and filled her glass and his, and made a toast to friendship.

Zac had been charming—a perfect gentleman. He had taken care not to so much as touch her, and there was still a foot of space between them on the sofa. Nothing like the arrogant man she had met last Friday, who had hardly kept his hands off her.

In fact, apart from Al, she could not remember ever feeling so relaxed in a man’s company. But then maybe seeing her with no make-up, wet hair and wearing a tired old robe had dampened Zac’s ardour, she thought with a wry grin, and told herself she was glad. But a little voice in her head whispered that it would be nice to feel his arms around her once more…

‘That was wonderful,’ she said, casting a sidelong glance at Zac. He was lounging back on the sofa beside her, his long legs stretched out before him, a glass of wine in his hand. His big body was at ease, and she had the fanciful notion that he looked like some great half-slumbering jungle predator.

‘An apple and a stale cheese sandwich are no substitute for a good meal,’ she went on, telling herself she was being ridiculous, fantasising about Zac. Picking up her glass of wine, she drained it and replaced it on the table. She raised a hand to her mouth as a yawn overtook her. Too much wine and not enough sleep, she thought, and murmured a polite, ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure,’ he drawled, turning towards her, a smile curving his hard mouth. His dark eyes met hers and she smiled lazily back, feeling strangely comfortable with Zac. Then his gaze dropped to where the soft blue fabric of her robe hugged the firm mounds of her breasts, unexpectedly making her shiver with sensual awareness.

Sally flushed and looked away. Suddenly, from being relaxed and sleepy she was wide-awake, and the sexual tension that had simmered between them when he arrived was back in full force. Her heart thudded a little faster and she had to swallow hard before she could find her voice.

‘Now I think you’d better leave. I am rather tired,’ she said defensively, shocked at how quickly he could arouse her with just a look.

‘So thank me properly and I will,’ Zac prompted softly, placing his glass on the table. He studied her pale beautiful face. Sally had actually yawned—not the effect he usually had on women. Though he noted the violet shadows under her eyes had deepened. Too much fun over the weekend…

Yet this exquisite creature had been driving him mad all evening. He had tried looking across the room, but the convenience of the bed, with its pristine white covers, had simply increased his frustration. He had thought she looked gorgeous elegantly dressed. But now, lounging on the sofa, with no make-up and wearing only a long blue bathrobe that exactly matched her eyes, with the silken mass of her glorious hair falling around her shoulders, she looked sensational.

After the first glass of wine she had unbent a little, and by the second she’d started eating and obviously enjoying the food. But had she been aware that every time she’d reached for a dish the lapels of her robe had gaped open, revealing her perfect breasts down to the dusky pink areolae? Or that when she licked her full lips she almost gave him a coronary? By accident or design he was not sure, and that yawn could have been fake…He didn’t care. His patience was running out.

‘A freely given kiss will be enough,’ he prompted huskily, and raised his hand to the side of her elegant neck, felt the pulse beating furiously in her throat, and was encouraged to let his fingers slide through the heavy fall of her silken curls—something he had been itching to do since she answered the door to him, looking gorgeous, with damp tousled hair and ready for bed…

‘Fine—as long as you realise that is all it will be, Zac.’ Her voice was soft, and she met his dark eyes cautiously.

‘Of course. I would not do anything you did not want me to,’ he assured her, and hoped this time it would be fine. He had noticed she had the habit of using the word when the opposite was true.

Edging closer, her slender thigh touching his, she moved to press her soft lips against his cheek.

‘You call that a kiss?’ He growled his frustration just as she was about to draw back, and placing one hand behind her head, looped the other arm around her waist and tugged her against him. She gave him a startled glance and tried to shake her head, but he held her firm and kissed her with all the pent-up passion that had been riding him ever since he had set eyes on her.

She responded as he had known she would, her arms reaching up to clasp his shoulders. He deepened the kiss, the taste, the heat, the scent of her enflaming all his senses. He slid a hand inside the lapels of her robe and around her back to press her closer. Her skin felt like the softest silk, and he felt her tremble in his arms.

She groaned when he broke the kiss, her fabulous blue eyes unconsciously pleading for more as they met his. ‘Trust me, Sally,’ he murmured. ‘It gets better.’ And he turned her slender body so she was lying across his thighs, his hand moving from her back to caress one luscious breast, his thumb and finger rolling and plucking the perfect rosebud peak. She watched him with wide, almost innocent eyes, and squirmed in his arms.

‘You like that?’ he murmured, and delivered the same treatment to her other breast, parting her robe still further. ‘Let me look at you, Sally,’ he demanded huskily. ‘All of you.’ She was perfection, and he ached to see her completely naked.

Sally did not know what had hit her. All she knew was that the sensations swirling around inside her were new and wonderful, and the man staring down at her was responsible. His husky-toned request vibrated deep in her body, and she could feel herself becoming damp with desire. She had never been naked in front of a man before, but suddenly she’d lost all her inhibitions.

Later she would blame it on the wine and exhaustion, but at this moment she had never felt more vibrantly alive in her life.

‘Yes…’ she breathed, and he untied the belt at her waist and pushed the robe off her slender shoulders.

In a dreamlike trance her eyes settled on his ruggedly attractive face and she saw the dark stain spread across his high cheekbones, the gold flame of desire in his night-black eyes, as he studied her naked body with an intensity that made the blood race faster though her veins. His strong hand slowly caressed her throat, her breasts, followed the indentation of her waist, traced the curve of her hip and moved over her flat belly.

‘You are perfect…more beautiful than I ever imagined,’ he rasped.

Flattered, but aching with a need she had never felt before, Sally moved her hand from his shoulder to slip it beneath the open neck of his shirt, her fingers tracing the curling black hair shadowing his chest that had tempted her when he’d walked in the door earlier. She felt the fast pounding of his heart beneath her palm and gloried in the knowledge that she could do this to him.

‘Oh, yes…’ he groaned when she touched him.

His dark head bent and her lips parted in eager anticipation, but his head had dropped lower, and suddenly his mouth closed over one pert nipple, teeth biting gently, then lips suckling hard, as his long fingers tangled in the soft curls at the juncture of her thighs.

Sensation upon sensation sent shock waves crashing through her body, igniting a blazing heat that drove her wild, and she responded with an untutored intensity that would shock her when she recalled it later. She grasped his shirt and pulled it apart, unaware of the buttons flying off, and let her hands roam freely over his magnificent bronzed chest, glorying in the feel of his firm flesh, her fingers luxuriating in the soft mat of body hair, her nails finding and scraping over his small, pebble-like masculine nipples.

Zac growled deep in his throat, and, pulling back, he swept her up in his arms and navigated the few stairs to the bedroom area. His great body tense, he flicked the robe right off her body and laid her down on the bed.

Breathless and dizzy with an excitement she had never experienced before, Sally watched him with desire-glazed eyes. He kicked off his shoes, removed his shirt and stepped out of his pants, his dark eyes never leaving her naked body.

Sally could only gaze in awe at his magnificent golden-toned physique.

He was unashamedly and blatantly masculine, with wide shoulders and a broad, muscular chest. The body hair that so fascinated her fanned out over his masculine nipples and arrowed down over a hard flat stomach. A shocked gasp escaped her as he shed his silk boxers and she realised he was massively erect. A tide of red swept up her cheeks and she dropped her eyes, but his powerful muscled thighs and long legs did nothing to stop the blush, and for a second she was afraid.

She had a brief moment of clarity, and could not believe what she had allowed to happen. But as if sensing her reaction, Zac leant forward and placed a hand either side of her, his body not touching hers. Gently he brushed his lips across her forehead, the soft curve of her cheek, and finally closed them over her mouth, stifling any protest she might have made. And the moment was gone, lost in the magic of his kiss.

He raised his head, his smouldering black eyes sweeping over her slender frame in avid fascination. Then, as if she were a sculpture, his hands began to shape her body, his long fingers discovering every curve and crevasse, teasing her flesh in a way that made her insides shake. She stretched and turned at his bidding, and for the first time in her life she abandoned every restraint she had put on herself for years and gloried in her womanhood.

He cupped her breasts, squeezing them together and nipping the rigid tips between his long fingers. A helpless moan escaped her. She was totally overwhelmed by the power of what she was feeling, delirious with the pleasure he gave.

‘You really like that?’ He grinned.

Sally nodded her head, incapable of speech, and grasped his arm, urging him to join her on the bed. He stretched out beside her, one hand resting on her quivering stomach, the other smoothing a few silken strands of hair back from her face.

His hand curved around her waist and urged her closer to his side. The heat and the musky male scent of him tantalised her nostrils, and she felt the hard length of his arousal pressing against her thigh. Amazingly she wasn’t afraid, but excited beyond reason. All she could think was that this magnificent man wanted her, and her head whirled as sensation after sensation arrowed through her body.

‘Tell me what else you like, Sally,’ he rasped huskily.

His hands were everywhere, and she looked at him, her whole body a quivering mass of feelings. ‘You,’ she said mindlessly, her brain turned to mush by sex.

His surveyed her with those smouldering eyes, one hand stroking over the flat plain of her stomach to settle at the juncture of her thighs and ease her legs apart, before his head dropped and his mouth covered a rigid nipple, suckling and tantalising yet again, until she didn’t think she could bear it. Then Zac lifted his head, and his hard mouth covered her swollen lips.

Her slender arms dropped to curve around his broad back, her hands sliding down to stroke his hard buttocks before tracing up the line of his spine to curve around his broad shoulders, and finally reaching up to tangle in the thick black hair of his head.

She closed her eyes, shuddering in ecstasy at the feel of his hair-roughened chest against her acutely sensitised breasts. His tongue flicked evocatively around the outline of her lips and then thrust into her mouth as he kissed her with a hard, possessive passion, and her own tongue swirled round his in wild response.