Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle (14 page)

A strange moment of modesty besieged her and she hesitated. This was the final frontier.

Oh, for goodness’ sake
, the Devil hissed,
he had his hands all up inside them less than two minutes ago
.

Claudia had to admit, the devil made a good point.

She
held his gaze as she lifted her hips and stripped them down off her legs. When she was completely bared to his view he dropped his gaze and looked his fill. A flush of heat swamped Claudia’s body, head to toe, and took up residence between her legs in the exact spot he had found with his fingers to devastating effect.

‘Your turn now,’ Claudia said, her voice husky, loaded with anticipation.

Luke was out of his underwear in two seconds flat and it was Claudia’s turn to look her fill. And she did. Oh, how she did. He jutted out so thick and proud, she understood why women in times gone by would swoon at the sight of a naked man.

If she weren’t a strong modern woman she’d just about swoon right off the bed.

Instead her pulse fluttered, her mouth watered, her belly lurched.

Captain Sexy-no-pants!

Luke watched as Claudia licked her lips and his erection grew harder, tighter and he thanked the hotel gods for mini-bar condoms. He snagged the three-pack off the nearby bench and strode the two paces to the bed. Claudia opened her arms and her legs and he went to her, settling between them, his hardness nudging all her slick heat.

He looked at her for long
moments, his hands either side of her face, wanting to tuck this memory away for ever. His eyes roved over her features, mapping every one. Blue eyes, cute snub nose, pointy little chin.

‘Hi,’ he said after a while.

‘Hey.’

And then he kissed her and it was deep and slow and sweet, not urgent and hurried like last time. The kind of kiss that melted from the inside, delivering a long,
slow burn. Lethal and sexy all at once. And when she moaned against his mouth and twined her arms around his neck to drag him closer the flame burned brighter.

Luke pulled away slightly, moved his mouth to her cheek, her neck, kissing his way down, aiming to go much further south than he had last time with his mouth.

But then Claudia was pulling on his shoulders and when he looked up
at her she said, ‘No. I need you in me. Now.’

Luke grinned. He liked her impatience. ‘Soon,’ he said, returning to his ministrations.

‘No,’ Claudia said and Luke glanced up again.
‘Now.’

He smiled as he dropped a kiss to her sternum. ‘Claude...I don’t think I’m going to last too long.’

That was the whole point of dragging out her pleasure, making it good, making it memorable
because he doubted his performance was going to be robust after several years of abstinence and sperm tubules that were about to rupture under the pressure.

Claudia cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘And you think I’m going to?’

He grinned at her as he reached for the condoms. ‘Hurry,’ she whispered and he did, quickly donning one over his still-rampant erection.

And then he was back between
her thighs, their hips aligned, and she was wrapping her legs around his waist and saying, ‘Now, now,’ and it was so easy to slide into all her heat, so easy and good and right, easy to pull out and go in again, easy to make her gasp and moan and beg him to not stop,
never stop
, easy to drive them towards the pleasure just a handful of strokes away.

Then they were coming together, gasping
and calling out each other’s names, rising and rising, holding on tight then letting go and falling, falling, falling.

FIFTEEN

They lay
in silence long after they’d both bumped back to earth. Luke had bundled her close, Claudia’s head on his shoulder, her breasts squashed against his ribs, her leg draped across his thighs. And for the longest time they didn’t say anything, just drifted along in a delicious post-coital haze.

Claudia supposed she should be feeling some kind of guilt or remorse
or mortification but she didn’t—not tonight anyway. There would be time enough for recriminations in the days and weeks ahead but for now she was just too damned chilled out. Instead she absently circled a finger around his nearest nipple, enjoying the tickle of the hair.

‘You should stop shaving,’ she said.

Luke’s eyes drifted open. ‘No.’

Claudia smiled. ‘I like stubble.’

‘Then you grow some,’ he murmured.

Claudia turned to face him, propping her chin on his chest. ‘I remember when you used to look very unshaven and shaggy.’

She lifted her hand and stroked his smooth jawline. God, as a teenager she’d drooled watching him come home from uni all shaggy-haired and scruffy as he headed straight for the beach.

Luke let his eyes drift shut again, enjoying
her light caress. ‘I lived at the beach, I had to look the part. But I’m a professional working man now and I need to look that part. Shaving
is
London. Stubble is Crescent Cove.’

Claudia sighed, not too far gone to get the message. But mellow enough to accept it. Accept that, for him, the length of his whiskers defined the type of man he was. ‘Whatever,’ she murmured. ‘You’d still look sexy
with stubble.’

Luke smiled. ‘I’m sexy enough.’

Claudia smiled too. Arrogant but true. Not that she was going to let him get away with such a cocky statement. ‘There’s always room for improvement,’ she murmured.

Luke opened his eyes and looked directly into hers. ‘I know it’s trendy these days to look a little ungroomed but a lot of my clients are old school. They respect men who
take the time to present well.’

Claudia screwed up her nose. ‘Sound like a bunch of old fuddy-duddies to me,’ she said, snuggling her head back into his shoulder again.

Luke chuckled at her disdain. Yeah, some of them were but they were also wealthy fuddy-duddies who could afford multimillion-dollar ad campaigns.

They were his fuddy-duddies.

He stroked her hair as his eyelids
grew heavy again, enjoying the low-level buzz still undulating through his pleasure receptors and vibrating against his skin.

He was almost asleep when Claudia’s quiet, ‘So, what did happen between you and Philippa?’ drifted his eyelids open. Maybe it was a measure of how relaxed, how ironed out he was that the question didn’t particularly alarm him. Earlier he’d told her it wasn’t any of
her business but now, he wanted her to know.

Maybe it would help her to understand him a little better. Why he was so driven to succeed. Why he’d not had time for the Tropicana. Why he had to go back.

But where to begin?

Claudia waited. He didn’t tense as she’d expected him to but it was a long time before he answered and she wondered if he’d gone to sleep.

‘She’d gone to Paris
for a work conference,’ Luke said into the stillness of the night. The pale red light from the clock glowed in Claudia’s hair, highlighting the blonde strands, and he played with them absently, sifting through them as he sifted through the memories. ‘I was joining her for the weekend. But an opportunity came up and I was able to join her a day early. I thought I’d surprise her. She’d left my
key at the desk so I grabbed it and let myself into the room. She was in bed with another man.’

Claudia, who had been distracted by the low sexy rumble of his voice as it vibrated through his ribcage, took a few seconds to process what he’d said. She turned quickly when the implications filtered in, flipping onto her stomach and using her elbow to drag herself closer to him, raising her head
and chest above him, looking down into hooded eyes.

‘Oh, Luke,’ she whispered, stroking her free hand down the side of his impossibly smooth face. ‘That’s awful...I’m so, so sorry.’ She kissed him then, a light press to his lips, to his cheek, to each eyelid in turn. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how awful that must have been.’

Luke grimaced as he short-circuited the ugly scene before
it played in slow-mo through his head yet again. ‘I was...gutted.’

‘You had no idea?’

Luke shook his head. ‘He was an old lover of hers. Her first boss in advertising at a
very
prestigious, old-school firm. It had apparently been a long-standing arrangement,’ he said and even after three years he could still taste the bitterness in his mouth. ‘She said it never occurred to her to give
him up.’

Claudia could feel his hurt and betrayal, could tell it was still a gaping wound for him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again, dropping a kiss on his chest because what else could she say?

The angel nodded sagely and reminded her it
was
none of her business. The devil wanted to demand Philippa’s address so they could go and scratch the unfaithful bitch’s eyes out.

‘Oh, it gets
worse,’ he said. ‘Philippa and I were setting up a business on our own. It was all legally binding and set to go. When I dared to express my outrage at her infidelity, when I deigned to separate from her and back out of the partnership, she stole my biggest client, the
firm’s
biggest client, right out from under me. Not only could I not go out on my own but the company lost money and took a blow
to its reputation. I’ve spent the last three years trying to repair the mess.’

Claudia thought back to all the uncharitable thoughts she’d had about Luke the last few years and felt ashamed. No wonder he hadn’t had any time for her and the Tropicana. No wonder he was looking to hightail it back to London as soon as possible.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Luke.’

Luke saw the compassion
in her eyes; it glittered in the red light that played in her baby blues. ‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘But I’ll always blame myself to a certain degree.’

Claudia couldn’t bear the thought of it. ‘Why?’ she demanded quietly, cupping both of his cheeks in her hands. ‘Because you loved someone and trusted them?’

‘Yes,’ he said, looking directly into her eyes. ‘And I’ll never be so foolish again.’

Claudia wanted to weep then. Not only had Philippa destroyed his faith in himself and his reputation at work but she’d also ruined him for love.

Ruined him for her.

She didn’t know what to do or say to make it better or convince him that one stupid woman did not represent all women. That people did love and it was true and deep and honest. That it could be abiding and faithful. Because
he knew that anyway.

He only had to look at his parents, or hers, to truly know that.

But one look at him now, his brown eyes practically glowing with indignation in the red light, she knew he didn’t think it applied to him. That he’d shut himself off from the possibility altogether.

And her heart broke into a thousand pieces. Because
she
wanted to be the one to show him what kind
of a woman he needed. Show him what love could be.

Because, God help her, she loved him.

She loved a man who could never love or trust again.

The words trembled on her lips but she lacked the courage to say them. Their relationship had taken a huge U-turn tonight and she didn’t know where it was going to go from here—nowhere, she suspected—but it certainly wasn’t the time to declare
her love.

Especially to a man who had just told her he wasn’t going there again.

Maybe it had even been a warning.

So she did the only thing she could think of—she rolled up on top of him, straddled his hips and kissed him. Long and deep and slow. He groaned as she pushed her tongue inside his mouth and she moaned back when he grabbed her naked butt and held her firm against his
burgeoning erection.

Her pulse sped up, her breathing roughened.

So did his.

Then she kissed his face and his neck and his chest. She swirled her tongue around his nipples before drifting it down to his abs and then his belly button. His hardness pressed into her breasts and she rubbed them against him as she swirled her tongue lower.

The gasp he gasped when she fitted her
mouth around him went straight to the hot tingle between her legs. He was as big and thick in her mouth as he had felt inside her and she took as much of him as she could.

‘Claude!’ he cried out as he buried his hands in her hair.

She let her tongue move all over him, up and down, round and round, finding his sensitive spots and then torturing them ruthlessly with the kind of tongue
lashing he’d given her breasts earlier.

He groaned again, his hands leaving her hair to fist in the sheets. ‘If you keep doing that,’ he panted, ‘it’s going to end real soon.’

Claudia could feel the tension in his thighs, his buttocks, see the whites of his knuckles. A sense of power washed through her as the tingling between her legs intensified to an excruciating level and she knew
there was only one way to relieve it.

Her mouth released him and he groaned. Whether it was in protest or relief she wasn’t sure. She just knew she had to feel all that wonderful hardness deep inside her, to the hilt, right up where that damn tingle had a stranglehold.

She dragged her way back up his body, grabbing handfuls of his flesh to assist her. When she reached her destination
she straddled him again then leaned over, reaching for a condom from the bedside table. He tried to curl up, take a nipple into his mouth but she swatted him back down.

‘No,’ she said, because she knew how that went and before she knew it she’d be a drooling, boneless starfish all over again when what she needed was to dominate.

Not be passive.

Relieve the unbearable tension and
show him with her body, if not with her words, that she was his.

‘Keep your hands exactly where they are, mister.’

‘Ooh, bossy.’ He grinned, planting his hands firmly on her hips.

Claudia didn’t bother to answer, she just tore the foil wrapper with her teeth, reached for him and rolled it on as if she’d worked in a condom factory all her life. And then she was positioning herself
over him and then, slowly, sinking down.

‘Oh, God.’ Luke’s groan matched her own as his fingers dug into her hips.

Claudia shut her eyes and threw her head back as she seated herself on him, completely impaled, the tingles obliterated. She was right—it
did
hurt so damned good.

When she opened her eyes again he was watching her, his hands still firmly planted on her hips. ‘What now?’
he murmured.

‘This,’ she said, circling her hips, once, twice, three times, panting with the stretch and fullness of it. ‘And this,’ she said, leaning forward, placing her hands on his shoulders and slowly, very slowly easing herself off him all the way then sinking back down again.

Luke groaned as his groin leapt and his mouth watered. Her breasts were glorious, pert and swaying enticingly
before him. ‘Again,’ he said, their gazes locking.

She did it again. And again. And again. He groaned all three times but his eyes didn’t leave her face.

‘You know,’ she said as she lifted off all the way for the fourth time, ‘not all women are like...’ she pushed back onto him again, sinking to the hilt again ‘...her.’

Claudia almost said her name but she didn’t want the ugliness
of what she’d done to intrude on this moment.

She didn’t want Philippa in
their
moment.

Luke nodded. ‘I know,’ he panted as his body fought to contain the gathering storm seething in his groin.

‘Do you?’ she whispered as she slid up again, fighting to keep her eyes from rolling back in her head. To keep them open. To keep them on him.

‘Yes,’ he hissed as he thrust up hard to
meet her this time, holding her hips tight. The violent jiggle of her breasts and her gasp, deeply satisfying.

Claudia shut her eyes briefly as the friction turned to something else, something pulsatile. She opened them and looked straight at him as she lifted her hips one more time. ‘I would never do that to you.’

Even though they could never be, she needed to know that he knew that.

Luke thrust. ‘I know.’

She lifted. ‘Do you?’

He thrust. ‘Yes.’

Claudia groaned as the tingling returned and the pulses grew and expanded, spreading from her belly button to her hips, her thighs, her buttocks, and she moved quicker, more urgently, trying to ease the glorious burn, not able to talk any more, only able to move up and down, up and down, up and down.

If she
talked she might just say too much in this state of sexual insanity.

Luke sensed her urgency, felt it echo deep inside himself. He met her stroke for stroke, her lovely breasts taunting him with each one, giving her what she didn’t even know she wanted, as his own orgasm pulled at his self-control, pulsing up from the root of his erection, fraying the world around him and when he couldn’t
take it any more he curled up, sliding his hands to the small of her back and sucking a nipple deep into his mouth.

‘Luke!’ she cried out, spearing her fingers into his hair, adjusting to their new position easily, riding him without missing a beat.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

And then they both shattered together.