The Dare Collection: February 2018. Anne Marsh

throat. How had she seen him so clearly when he’d failed to join all the dots? How could he let her go when for the first time in his life he felt truly connected?

      He brushed undemanding lips over hers. ‘Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything—take you back to London, fly you home to New York. Tell me.’

      She pressed her mouth to his, surprising him with the passion lurking just beneath the surface. Twisting her fingers in his hair, she angled his head until he yielded under her assault, welcoming the touch of her tongue to his with a desire that matched that simmering in him.

      She broke away. ‘Don’t ask anything of me.’

      Her breath gusted over him, the chips of amber in her eyes masking her vulnerability.

      There it was. Her limit. Her ultimate demand.

      He’d never wanted to deny her more.

      She gave him no time to acquiesce. She straddled him where he sat, her fingers tunnelling into his hair as she tipped his head back, leaned over him and kissed him with a desperation that begged.

      But he was done with games. He’d told her that in London. And he’d meant it. And now she’d shown him the raw, exposed part of her he wouldn’t let her retreat. This time he’d control as much as he conceded, show her what he couldn’t ask of her, feared telling her in case she skittered out of reach.

      She writhed on his lap, pressing her moist heat to his already steely cock. Her whimpers notched up the urgency raging through him—the need to claim her, to convince her they had something worth exploring, something worth fighting for, something beyond a holiday fuck.

      But he wouldn’t rush this. Wouldn’t allow her to rush it. Their chemistry, combustive enough to leave them both burnt alive, if harnessed could be ten times as rewarding. And he intended to show her that.

      Libby tugged at his shirt, pulling it from his waistband with frantic fingers. He cupped her arse, grinding her onto his erection until she cried out, biting his lip so he tasted blood. Fuck, he loved her demanding side. She knew exactly what she wanted and made sure she got it. And he’d make sure he was there to give it to her.

      Slipping one hand under her dress, he edged her lace panties aside, finding her soaked. He’d barely touched her. He located her clit, passing a few swipes over the bundle of nerves until she dragged her mouth from his and dropped her head back on a sigh of ecstasy.

      He slid his mouth over her exposed neck, finding the sensitive spot beneath her ear and filling his nose with her unique scent as he pushed two fingers inside her and circled her clit with his thumb.

      She was close. He could tell by the way her pants stuttered in her throat. Her hips jerked erratically and her eyes, when she opened them and gazed at him, were largely obscured by the dark crescents of her thick lashes. Beautiful. What she couldn’t give him in words, in declarations, her body gave him in the abandon she couldn’t conceal, in the depth of her stare and the way her fingers clung.

      His chest ballooned. He was ten feet tall. A king.

      He did this to her. Him.

      Her internal muscles gripped his fingers. His other hand loosened its clutch on her hip and he lifted the swathe of dark silk from her nape, twisting her hair around his wrist and tangling the ends between his fingers. He held her captive, his hand cramping with the pressure of his working fingers between her legs and his fist entwined in her glorious, thick tresses.

      His. She was his. Possession burned through him with the thrum of his racing blood.

      She glowed. A beautiful woman on the brink of intense sexual pleasure. His balls tightened. His own lust was a dull kick in the gut, but he intended to prolong this night, to wring every ounce of rapture from her so that when she left him she’d be in no doubt as to the depth of his rapidly expanding feelings and hard pushed to deny her own.

      She could run, but he’d make damn sure she couldn’t hide.

      Her decadent lips parted on a strangled gasp. Her eyes widened, barely clinging to his, and her hips stilled.

      His stare wide, so as not to miss one second of her orgasm, Alex gripped the back of her neck.

      ‘Olivia.’

      Crushing her mouth with his, he captured her broken cries with deep kisses, swallowing each one.

      Her pleasure became his pleasure. Her pain of moments ago his pain. Somehow, in a few short days, she’d come to mean more to him than any other woman.

      She quietened in his arms, the last judders leaving her replete and languorous. He lifted her, scooping one arm under her legs and the other around her back, and carried her to the bedroom they shared.

      He saw nothing but her. Didn’t give a fuck about his business, the charity or even his family enjoying a meal somewhere else in the château. All that mattered was Olivia, and his need to show her exactly what she meant to him.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      THE SHEETS WERE cool at her back as Alex laid her gently on the bed. She searched his stare, trying to deny what she saw there. After his honest declaration in the pool, meeting his mother and witnessing the pain mirrored in eyes so much like her son’s, all his pieces slotted together. And his instincts about her own demons? Alex peered far too closely into her soul for comfort.

      She’d tried to stay impassive, to distance herself. But in the end she’d been helpless against opening herself up to him. She understood guilt, knew first-hand how it burned away at you, slowly, like acid. And she didn’t want that for Alex—couldn’t bear to see it destroy what was left of his relationship with his mother. He gave so much of himself. To people, to his charity, to her.

      When she’d probed him about Jenny, told him about Callum, she’d feared she’d push him even further away than her attempt to do so in the pool. But he stood over her now, slowly peeling her from her clothes and then shucking his own until there was little between them except the unspoken.

      Her mouth filled with all she longed to say. But it was pointless. She was leaving and she wouldn’t give him false hope. Wouldn’t hurt him even when staying silent left her shredded.

      He pulled her up on still shaky legs, her intense climax having robbed her of all but the basic functions of breathing and pumping blood around her body. He caressed her. His eyes and large hands touching on every part of her until she trembled anew with adrenaline. Tenderness seeped from his touch, from his stare. She closed her eyes, struggling to witness the raw emotion spilling out of him. Emotion for her. Emotion she longed to accept. Longed to reciprocate.

      He pummelled her resolve, pulling her so close that she struggled to breathe. He wrapped his arms around her, tangling one hand in her hair and tilting her head back so he could lavish her throat and upper chest with soft, indulgent kisses.

      She swayed, the only thing keeping her upright his strong arms banded around her. She’d never survive this—was already perilously close to the final leap of faith.

      ‘Turn around.’

      His words whispered over her neck, skittering down her spine. Helpless, she obeyed, her movements slowed by the easy slide of her hair around his wrist and hand. Not tugging. Never bringing pain, but with enough tension that every hair on her head transmitted pleasure to her strung-out nerve endings. She covered his hand, pressing his palm to her head, feeling what he felt.

      He kissed her shoulders, lips gliding, his free hand sliding over her hip as he nudged her feet closer to the bed. Libby’s head swam. She scrunched her eyes tightly closed. It was enough to hear the husky command in his voice and to feel the reverence of his touch.

      His erection lodged between the cheeks of her ass, the warm, hard length of him shooting tingles up her spine to join with the ones from her stimulated scalp.

      ‘Fuck,