New Year, New Man. Laura Iding

and loose, relaxing in his lair.

      She explored at her leisure, loving the smooth, silky feel of his skin there, the flared mushroom shape of the head. He lay very still as she touched him and his breathing changed, becoming faster, shallower. When she bent to kiss him, he let out a low groan.

      That made her smile as she lowered her mouth on him and took him inside. He whispered encouragements. She knew she wasn’t doing that good of a job. But he never complained. He eased his fingers into her hair, curving them around the back of her neck as she took him in and then let him out nice and slow. He didn’t try to take control. His hold was loose, gentle. And she liked that so much.

      It made her feel powerful and sexy and womanly. Her mouth surrounding him, her hand wrapped around him, she was running that show.

      Running it all the way to the finish, as it turned out. Beneath her hand, she felt him pulsing. His body stiffened. He let out a low, deep moan. “Luce, you should let me...”

      No way. She was doing this and she was doing it right. She stayed with him, swallowed him down. He tasted like sea foam, musky and salty. He held her tighter against him right there at the end, and he growled out her name in a way that sent a hot thrill zipping through her, because she had done it, given him pleasure, just as he’d done for her.

      She kissed her way up the muscular center of him, feeling naughty and bold.

      He took her and turned her and tucked her against him. “Sleep.”

      “Huh? But we only just got started.”

      He chuckled. “Greedy.” He sounded pleased about it.

      “Dami, there’s only so much time and I have so much to learn.”

      “Sleep,” he said again.

      So she closed her eyes—not for long, she told herself. Just for a little while....

      * * *

      When she woke, he was kissing her.

      She looked down and his dark head was tracing the length of her scar as he feathered kisses along it. He kissed her breast, found another scar—a small horizontal one from years ago when she’d needed a temporary pacemaker after surgery.

      He went lower. He kissed the little cluster of drainage-tube scars.

      And lower still...

      The things he could do with his mouth, with his tongue...

      No doubt about it. She had made the right choice to come to him to get up to speed on making love.

      He did it again, brought her all the way to the top of the world and then over the edge, with his mouth that time. And then he took her hand and pulled her up out of the bed and led her into the kitchen. He made them more of his delicious hot chocolate. They sat together at the table sipping cocoa without a stitch on. It was strangely erotic, like those dreams you sometimes have where you’re naked someplace you would never go without your clothes on.

      Once she’d finished her chocolate, he told her to get dressed, and when she had everything back on but the panties he’d torn, he said, “Now I want you to return to your room and get some sleep. I’ll come for you at eleven.”

      “But, Dami, we haven’t... I mean, it’s been amazing. But we’re not finished yet.”

      He bent close and whispered in her ear. “Don’t wear any panties.”

      Her breath caught on a gasp. “You mean...?”

      “For all day and into the evening. No panties. And don’t cheat. Wear a dress or a skirt. No tights, either.”

      The place where her panties should have been was suddenly damp. “Oh, Dami. You are very bad.”

      “So I’ve been told. No knickers, and whenever you notice that you’re without them, think of me.”

       Chapter Seven

      All that Saturday, Lucy did think of him.

      And not only because she was walking around without her panties.

      How could she not think of him? He was the best friend she’d ever had, not to mention the hottest, smoothest guy she knew.

      He sat across from her at another café, where they had coffee and a real breakfast. She ordered a mushroom omelet and toast with jam.

      “Eat everything,” he commanded. “You have to keep your strength up....” And he gave her a look. Intimate. Teasing. That look said he knew she had no knickers on. That look made promises concerning what he would do to her as soon as they were alone.

      She couldn’t wait, though he seemed quite happy to make her wait.

      “Eat,” he said again.

      And she did. She ate every bite of her omelet. Both pieces of toast, too. Slathered in jam.

      After that he took her where she really wanted to go: his studio, in a villa on one of the hills surrounding the harbor. He kept a flat on the lower floor. They didn’t even go in there.

      Upstairs in the studio, he’d had all but the load-bearing interior walls removed. His sketches and oil paintings were everywhere, some tacked to the remaining walls, some on easels or spread out on the rough worktables. It was a beautiful space, full of light even in the cool month of November. It was also chilly, though, and dusty. He turned on the heat and admitted he hadn’t been there in months.

      That gave her another opportunity to remind him that he should be making time for the things that mattered.

      He only backed her up against a wall between a drawing of a small dark-haired girl in traditional Montedoran dress and another of a white goat chewing on a straw hat. “No lectures. Not today.” And then he kissed her, a slow, lovely kiss during which he eased his clever hands inside her coat and caressed her breasts through her sweater. He also trailed his fingers up her thigh, taking her skirt along, too.

      When he touched her where she wasn’t wearing any panties, she moaned into his mouth as her body instantly responded. He went on touching her, stroking her. She went over the top right there while he kissed her, by the window that let in the pale late-autumn light, against the white wall.

      As the fierce pleasure faded to a happy glow, she laughed and dared to put her hand down between them to feel how what he’d done to her had excited him, too. She was just running her fingers up and down the long tight bulge at his fly when the cell phone in his pocket started to vibrate.

      He muttered, “Ignore it,” and captured her mouth again.

      But she turned away, grinning and more than a little bit breathless. “Go on, answer it—at least check and see if it’s anything important.”

      “It’s not.” He bit the side of her neck and then stuck out his tongue and licked where he’d nipped her.

      By then the phone had stopped its soft buzzing. She gave in and turned to him again with a willing sigh. His warm lips settled on hers.

      And the phone started vibrating a second time.

      He swore against her mouth—and then he lifted his head, took the phone from his pocket and switched it off quickly. But not before she saw that it was Vesuvia. He glanced up at her as he shoved it back in his pocket again and must have seen something he didn’t like in her expression. “Don’t you start in on me.”

      “What? I didn’t—”

      He stopped her from saying more by kissing her again, a long, thorough kiss, more artful than passionate. She accepted that kiss. Like all his kisses, it was too good to pass up. But the mood was pretty much trashed.

      In the end, even a lover as skilled as Dami had trouble getting back into a sexy encounter after dual interruptions from the ex. He braced an arm against the wall above her shoulder