Charlene Sands - The Montoros Affair - The Princess and the Player / Maid for a Magnate / A Royal Temptation

Watching him with unabashed invitation, she let him ease the grape between her lips and accepted it with a swirl of her tongue across the tips of his fingers. His eyelids lowered, fluttering slightly, and he deliberately set his glass of wine on the coffee table, as if to silently announce he planned to use both hands in very short order.

She shuddered as all the newly-awakened feelings for this man twined with the already-powerful attraction. She wanted to explore his depths and let the amazing things happening between them explode. Simple desire she understood and appreciated, but this went beyond anything simple, beyond anything she’d experienced before.

“Or we can do both at the same time,” she suggested, her voice dropping huskily as he trailed his wet fingertip down her chin and throat to trace the line of her cleavage.

“There you go again reading my mind,” he murmured and captured another grape without looking away, his gaze hot and full of promise. “Let’s see if you can guess what I’m thinking now.”

Seven

James outlined Bella’s full lips with the grape and then ran it down her throat, resting it in the hollow of her collarbone. Slowly, he leaned over and drew the fruit into his mouth, sucking at her fragrant skin as he crushed the grape in his teeth simultaneously.

The combination of Bella and sweet juice sang across his taste buds. She was exquisitely, perfectly made and he wanted her with an unparalleled passion that wiped his mind of everything else.

Flinging her head back to give him better access, she gulped in a breath and exhaled on a low moan that tightened his whole body.

“Instead of reading your mind,” she said, her low voice burrowing into his abdomen, spreading heat haphazardly, “why don’t you surprise me with a few more strategically placed grapes?”

“You like that?”

Grapes as a seduction method—that was a first. And now he was wishing he’d bought a bushel. Gripping another one, he traced it between her breasts and circled one of her nipples. It peaked beautifully under the filmy sundress.

How had he gotten so supremely lucky as to have such a beautiful, exciting woman within arm’s reach? One who didn’t require him to rain expensive gifts down on her, but seemed perfectly content with simple trappings and a man paying attention to her.

All the talk of heroics made his skin crawl. She was sorely mistaken if she thought of him as a hero, but the look in her eyes—well, that made him feel ten feet tall, as if he could do anything as long as she believed in him.

The power of it emboldened him.

Urgently, he lunged for her, catching her up in his arms as he laid her back on the blanket. Her lips crashed against his in a hot, wet kiss that went on and on as their tongues explored and dipped and mated. Her body twined with his and finally, she was underneath him, his thigh flush against her core. Her hands went on a mission to discover every part of his back and he reveled in the feminine touch he’d been craving for so long.

Hooking the neckline of her dress, he dragged it from her breast. As her flesh was revealed, he followed the trail with his mouth, nibbling and kissing until his lips closed over her nipple.

She arched against his mouth, pushing herself deeper inside as he reached for a handful of grapes. With little regard for decorum, he lifted his head and crushed the fruit savagely, letting the juice drip onto her peaked nipple. The liquid wetted the tip as she watched with dark eyes; her glistening breast was so erotic, he groaned even as he leaned forward to catch an errant drop on his tongue.

Licking upward until he hit her nipple again, he sucked all the juice off to the sound of her very vocal sighs of pleasure. That nearly undid him.

“I want to see all of you,” he murmured and his need was so great, he didn’t even wait for her reply. Peeling off that little dress counted as one of the greatest pleasures of his life as inch by inch, he uncovered her incredible skin.

“You’re so beautiful,” he told her with a catch in his throat.

Something unnamable had overcome him. Something dramatic and huge. But he liked it and before whatever it was fled, he pulled a string of condoms from his pocket and rolled to the side to shed his own clothes so he could feel every gorgeous bit of her against him.

When he was naked, he rolled back, intending to gather up that bundle of heaven back into his arms, but she stopped him with a palm to his chest. “Not yet. I want to see you, too.”

Her gaze roved over his body and lingered in unexpected places. His thighs. His pectorals. Her palm spread and flattened over his nipple, as if she wanted to grab hold.

When she couldn’t, she purred. “Hard as stone. I like that.”

“I like you touching me.”

“Allow me to continue.” Wicked smile spreading across her face, she ran both hands down the planes of his chest and onto his thighs, right past the area he’d hoped she was headed for. Which of course made him anticipate the return journey.

Her fingernails scraped his leg muscles lightly, and she trailed one hand over his hip to explore his butt, which tightened automatically under the onslaught. Everything tightened with unanswered release, including the parts he’d have sworn were already stretched to the point of bursting.

He groaned as heat exploded under her hands. His hips strained toward her, muscles begging to be set free from the iron hold he had on them. “Are you trying to make me barmy?”

“Nope. Just looking for the best places for when it’s my turn with the grapes.”

“Oh, it’s totally your turn,” he countered. “This is your dinner, too, and you must be hungry.”

“At last.” She knelt, grabbed a grape and eyed his splayed body. “Hmm. Where to start? I know.”

She stuck the grape in her mouth and rolled it around with her tongue, her hot gaze on his erection. Somehow that was more arousing than if she’d actually tongued him . She caught the small globe in her front teeth and bent to run it over his torso, dipping into the valleys and peaks, her hair spreading out like a feathery torture device across his sensitive skin. When she accidentally—or maybe on purpose—dragged her hair over his erection, the light touch lit him up. Fire radiated from the juncture of his thighs outward and just as he was about to cup her head to guide her toward the prize, she leaned up on her haunches.

Plucking the grape from between her lips, she grazed his length with the wet grape, nearly causing him to spill everything in one pulse.

“Enough of that,” he growled, manacling her wrist to draw it away from the line of fire. “You’ve obviously underestimated my appetite. Time for the main course.”

She grinned. “I thought you’d never say that.”

Fumbling with a condom, he somehow managed to get it secured and then rolled her underneath him. He’d been fantasizing about taking her exactly this way for an eternity. Soft and luscious, she slid right into the curves of his body as she had that day in the sand, except this time, nothing separated their skin and it was every bit as glorious as he’d imagined.

“You—” He nearly swallowed his tongue as she shifted, rolling her hips against his. The tips of her breasts ground into his torso, and it all felt so amazing, he couldn’t speak.

And then he didn’t have to speak as he gazed down into her blue eyes. Candlelight danced in their depths and he caught a hint of something else that hit him in the gut. As if she’d seen pieces of him that he’d never realized were there and she liked what she’d found. As if she truly saw him as a hero. Maybe she was the only one who could relate. They were both rebels—to the rest of the world—but his pain and difficulties behind the rebellion made total sense to her.