The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

his kept woman. That idea struck her as so ridiculous that a nervous giggle bubbled in the back of her throat.

      ‘I don’t want to talk,’ Luciano breathed with sudden lancing impatience as he met her pale aquamarine gaze. He ran his hands through the thick tangle of hair tumbling round her shoulders. ‘I like your hair. It’s so long. Are you wearing extensions?’

      ‘No, it’s all me,’ Jemima muttered breathlessly, because he was standing so close now that she could feel the heat of his body striking hers.

      And right there, he knew he had her because he knew for a fact that only a few months earlier his son’s mother had had short hair. But he had already accepted that she was a lying fake, hadn’t he? Charles Bennett didn’t make mistakes. Yet, trailing his fingertips through that lustrous skein of golden silk, Luciano couldn’t have cared less about who Jemima was or what she was. He only wanted to see that marvellous hair spread across his pillows and without hesitation he bent and lifted her up.

      ‘Put me down, Luciano!’ she gasped.

      ‘No,’ he said simply. ‘I want you.’

      ‘That’s not enough!’

      Luciano shouldered open the door between their bedrooms. ‘It’s enough for me, piccolo mia.’

      And she was on the brink of telling him why it wasn’t enough for her when he kissed her, kissed her long and hard and hungrily until the blood drummed in her head and her toes curled and her mind went blank. Her fingers reached up and delved into his black curls, shaping his proud head, roaming down the back of his neck. The need to touch him was so powerful it overwhelmed every other prompting, even the cautious vibes trying to tug her back to sanity.

      Luciano settled her down on his bed and studied her with immense satisfaction. He knew what she was. He knew what she was capable of. But he could not be damaged by a known threat. Her greed was a weakness he would use to control her, he reflected with satisfaction while only dimly questioning what had happened to his belief that one night would be sufficient for him. He knew he wasn’t fully in control and it made him feel outrageously free of his rigid rules to do as he liked. She would be his for as long as he wanted her and that was all that currently mattered to him. He bent down and crushed her ripe mouth under his again, one hand closing to the rounded curve of her breast and feeling the race of her heartbeat. His own heartbeat was like thunder in his ears. Her mouth was hot and eager and sweet, so sweet that he couldn’t get enough of it.

      His kisses were like an addictive drug that Jemima couldn’t resist. Time and time again, she told herself, ‘Just one more kiss.’ And then what? a little voice piped up at the back of her head. Her spine arched as he lifted her and deftly released the catch on her bra. Before she could react he was peeling her top off over her head and tugging the bra down her arms.

      ‘You’re glorious,’ Luciano husked, tracing her firm, full breasts with an almost reverent hand, pausing to toy with the protruding tips before bowing his head to lash his tongue across the tender crests.

      Jemima huffed, lashes fluttering as sweet, seductive sensation snaked down from her nipples to her feminine core and joined the throbbing heat gathering there. Long brown fingers cradled her bare, rose-tipped curves and his mouth grew a little rougher while he teased the engorged buds, licking and suckling and nibbling with an erotic expertise that made her hips writhe against the mattress. She did not have a single thought in her head, only a sense of shock at the raw intensity of what he was making her feel.

      With impatient hands he wrenched her out of her skirt and tossed his shirt on the floor to join it. Jemima gazed up at him with wondering appreciation, her attention lingering helplessly on the sleek bronzed torso composed of lean, hard muscle that swooped impressively down to frame a flat stomach and narrow hips. His shoulders were wide and as rounded with rippling muscles as his biceps. Only then as she reluctantly tore her attention from him did she become conscious of her naked breasts, but as she lifted her hands instinctively to cover herself he caught them in one of his and pinned them above her head.

      ‘No interfering,’ he told her in a roughened undertone. ‘We only do this my way, piccolo mia.’

      Colour washed her cheeks because she felt literally shameless lying there half-naked. He used his mouth to torment a straining nipple and she gasped, all self-consciousness wrested from her in the space of a moment. ‘Let me touch you...’ she pleaded.

      He released her wrists. ‘Some other time,’ he mumbled, kissing a haphazard trail down over her ribcage and her tightening stomach to part her thighs.

      Jemima froze, incredulous at his position and mortified, at least until he touched her and it was as if wildfire shot through her veins. Just as quickly there was nothing in her mind but a feverish concentration on what he was doing to her and how incredibly good it made her feel. Pushing her thighs back, he started slow with a long swipe of his tongue and when her hips lifted of their own accord he laughed softly.

      ‘I’m really good at this,’ he told her shamelessly.

      And he didn’t lie. He found every sensitive spot of arousal hidden in her tender folds, traced and teased those places with sleek, skilled fingertips, the glide and dip of his tongue and even the edge of his teeth. She could feel herself growing achingly wet in response, her heartbeat thumping inside her chest as if she were running a race. A fullness like a dam began to gather and build low in her pelvis and she turned this way and that to cope with the rise of heat and the throbbing torture of his electric exploration, restricted by his strong hold on her hips. Fire was burning through her as sensation piled on sensation at mesmerising speed. And then her own response started becoming more than she could contain, tiny spasms rippling through her quivering body and finally growing into a convulsive wave that swept her up and flung her high before sending her sobbing to earth again. She felt as though the top of her head were flying off while her body felt detached and heavy.

      ‘I am burning for you, piccolo mia,’ Luciano growled, sliding up over her to claim her mouth again.

      He tasted of her and that shocked her but she was already in a state of shock so a little more didn’t seem to matter. She had stepped out of her safe comfortable world into a far more dangerous one and learned weakness. And it wasn’t the incredible allure of what he had made her feel that was her weakness, she acknowledged numbly. Her weakness was him. It was the heady joy she experienced when she saw the wicked smile in those lustrous golden eyes gazing down at her with satisfaction. It was knowing that his pleasing her had pleased him, made him feel good, lifted him out of the bad mood he had been in. That gave her a high more powerful than anything she had ever felt and incandescent warmth filled her.

      ‘You do something crazy to me,’ Luciano groaned as he rolled back from her to deftly take care of protection. ‘I almost forgot to use a condom.’

      Long fingers gripped her hips as he tilted her back and shifted against her. And she felt him nudge against her most tender flesh for the first time. It relit the fire that he had only recently sated, sending a frisson of reflexive hunger coursing through her again. Below his tousled black curls the arresting planes of his lean dark face were taut; his eyes blazed scorching gold with need. He took her mouth again with his, unexpectedly slow and gentle until his tongue delved between her lips and tangled with her own in a delicious dance. Nothing had ever been as arousing as that kiss and it fired her adrenaline. Her hands lifted to sink her fingers into his luxuriant hair and hold him to her but he pulled away a split second before he pushed into her.

      ‘You’re still so tight,’ Luciano growled in frustration, stilling in an effort to accustom her to his girth, raw need driving his big powerful body as potently as a gun to his head.

      She could feel her body stretching to accommodate him and apprehension gathered. She couldn’t tell him that he would be her first because he believed she had birthed his son. He believed she was experienced and would undoubtedly prefer that to the rather pathetic truth. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and arched up to him in determined welcome, keen to get her introduction over with before the little regretful voices inside her head could gain her attention. And she knew what those little voices were about to tell her