Ally Blake - Bargaining with the Billionaire - The Blackmail Bargain / The Billion-Dollar Bride / How To Marry a Billionaire

She said, ‘I assume my main function on the yacht is to hang on your arm and gaze adoringly at you?’

‘My ego doesn’t need stoking quite that badly,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Besides, I don’t want to ruin my reputation for finding both brains and beauty in my lovers.’

Peta had got to her feet and was putting the cover onto the plate. His words startled her into looking up. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said sharply, because of course she didn’t believe him. ‘I’m intelligent enough, I suppose, but I’m not beautiful.’

Curt walked across the room towards her. ‘The first time I saw you I thought you were the most stunning woman I’d seen for years.’

Hands clenched on either side of the tray, she stared at him. His voice had been unemotional, but as he got closer she realised that his eyes were lit by a blue flame. An answering flame burst into life inside her.

She swallowed to ease her dry throat and croaked, ‘I don’t believe that for a moment. I was covered in mud.’

‘And exceedingly disdainful,’ he agreed, removing the tray from her hands and putting it back onto the table. ‘I had to stop myself from kissing that sneer from your lovely mouth.’

‘You were as arrogant as you could possibly be.’

‘As far as I knew, you were my brother-in-law’s lover,’ he pointed out, and kissed her, his hands tangling in the sleek weight of hair at the nape of her neck.

Shivers of erotic delight leapt from nerve end to nerve end. She’d gone rigid, but his mouth melted her resistance so that she sagged into his arms, lifting her face in mute, open invitation, everything banished from her mind but the sheer physical excitement of his touch.

Rapturously she yielded to the fierce demand of his mouth, the iron power of his arms, the hard support of his body as he cradled her against him—to her own craving, a longing infinitely more complex than simple, straightforward lust.

Something different about the quality of the kiss should have alerted her to danger, but she was so lost in pleasure she didn’t notice until it was too late to react.

‘Sweet and fiery and potent,’ he said against her lips, his voice raw and deep.

Heat scored her skin, but she met his hooded gaze unflinchingly, the golden fire that smouldered in the depths of her eyes matching the blue intensity of his.

Raw need beat up inside her, wild and reckless, and for the first time in her life Peta understood how the lightning strike of passion could shatter everything—all common sense, all the strictures that kept you safe. With Curt she didn’t want to be safe—she wanted to follow this white-hot primeval hunger to wherever it took her.

Curt touched his lips to the corner of her mouth in a kiss as soft as it was sensuous, then gently bit the side of her throat.

Peta’s heart filled her body with erotic drumming.

When she gasped his name he said, ‘You’ve got such a lazy, throaty voice, a summer voice, and then you look at me and I see storms and a desperation that almost matches mine.’

His words seemed to come from far away, and she thrilled to the authentic note of need in them, stark and carnal and consuming.

Hunger beat up through her, so ferocious she could taste it in her mouth, feel it stabbing through every cell in her body.

‘I know,’ she said, and something in her snapped.

Or perhaps it slotted into place and she knew her mind for the first time in her life. Even if this was wrong—if Curt was lying to her—she wanted him. For once she was going to emerge from the safe blandness of the life she’d constructed so carefully, and follow her questing heart wherever it led her.

So when his hand slid beneath her robe, she reciprocated with fingers splayed across his shirt. But she could only clench her hand on the thin material because her whole body tensed unbearably while he stroked gently, knowledgeably towards the tightly beaded centre of her breast.

‘Are you sure?’ His voice was guttural.

‘Absolutely.’

Curt forced himself to examine her face, trying not to swear because her tentative caress had shredded his control. She’d said the single word like a vow, her eyes blazing, her head held high and her mouth—oh, God, her mouth —firm, for all its lush promise.

He had to fight down the reckless urge to grab her, fling her on the bed and sink into her, lose himself in her sweet fire. Clenching his jaw against stark desire, he let his hand fall. ‘I can stop now; soon I won’t be able to.’

A savage wanting twisted inside Peta and she shivered. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

His hard, beautiful mouth compressed, then relaxed into that shark smile. ‘Thinking is a real problem right now,’ he murmured, a lean hand finding the tie around her waist.

He gave it a rapid, sure tug. The belt dropped free and the front of her gown swung open, revealing that she had nothing on beneath it.

Curt froze, and she looked at his profile, so close, so absorbed, the bold angles and lines clamped into a mask of hunger that should have terrified her.

Instead, her sharp craving exploded into keen torment, fuelled by his closeness and the dark intensity of his gaze on the soft golden curves of her breasts. A rush of pride reinforced her courage; his trademark self-control was shattering in front of her.

He looked into her eyes. Slowly, giving her time to stop him, he pushed the shoulders of the wrap back. The soft material whispered over her skin, licking against it in slow, delicious provocation.

Need savaged her, half pleasure, half pain. Her breath panted between her lips, and it took every scrap of willpower to stand still. At last the gown fell to the floor, and she stood in front of him, tall and slim and naked.

Moving quickly, he hauled the shirt over his head. Lamp-light glowed bronze on his big, lithe body, collecting in pools of light and shadow. The unsparing strength of his desire coiled around her, stoking hers to create a conflagration.

‘Last chance,’ he said harshly.

Peta shook her head.

She expected him to strip off the rest of his clothes, so when he picked her up and carried her across to the bed she gasped.

Muscles coiling, he stooped, hauled the coverlet back and lowered her onto the sheet. Its coolness contrasted with the heat collecting in all the hidden places of her body. Bemused, she ran her hand across the swell of his biceps, letting her fingers loiter sensuously against the fine grain of his skin.

‘That’s not a good idea,’ he said between his teeth.

Humiliation searing through her, she snatched her hand back, but he caught it in mid-air.

‘I like to be touched,’ he rasped, and kissed her fingers, ‘but for this first time, take it slowly.’

He released her and while she lay dazed with excitement because he was planning a future for them, he kicked off his shoes and undid the fastening of his trousers and stepped out of them.

Peta’s heart shut down. Sleek-skinned, powerfully made, he was big everywhere, she thought dazedly—big and experienced—and she had no idea whether she was going to be able to take him. She knew enough about sex to understand that most women could accept most men, and she certainly wanted him, but—

Surprisingly, he understood. ‘Don’t worry—it will be all right,’ he promised in a thick, heated voice, and came down beside her, one arm sliding beneath her neck so that her lips were only a centimetre away from his.

She couldn’t control the tension that stiffened her muscles and dried her mouth, but instead of the onslaught she unconsciously feared he kissed the pulse in her throat, and the erotic little caress eased her into pleasure again. She turned her face into his hair, inhaling the subtle, intoxicating scent of his skin.