The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

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      ‘Not enough to make a difference!’ Billie snapped back, a kind of madness in the strong emotions powering her while she fought a humiliatingly defensive urge to just race out of the door and run away like a scared kid.

      Gio imprisoned her in the strong circle of his arms in an unforewarned movement that jolted her. Brilliant dark eyes blazed pure gold fire down at her. ‘There’s more than enough for both of us,’ he spelt out, marvelling that she was still fighting him when it was more normal for him to be fighting off the women who ceaselessly pursued him with flirtation and flattery.

      ‘Let me go!’ she told him shakily.

      ‘No.’ Gio studied her with smouldering determination. ‘You’ll only run away again. I can feel it in you and I won’t let you do something that stupid again.’

      ‘You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to—’

      ‘But what about what you want to do?’ Gio savoured the comeback, bending his handsome dark head to run his tongue along the seam of her closed lips.

      Taken by surprise, Billie jerked, her blood running heavily and slowly through her veins as if time itself had slowed down to give her the chance to catch up. His breath fanned her cheek and his lips connected with hers in a heart-stopping collision that tripped her ability to breathe. His lips were smooth and unusually gentle and soft and somehow she couldn’t prevent herself from turning up her chin to ask for more of the same.

      Gio smiled against her lush mouth, hunger beating through him like a jackhammer. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything or anybody in his life and he was all fired up to fight hard for what he wanted because he knew she would restore the oasis of peace he needed in his private life. Long fingers smoothed over her back, his other hand curving to her waist. He nipped at her soft lower lip and then glided his sensual mouth over hers in a move that swallowed her tiny cry of surprise. His hand moved up to tangle in her mane of curls and the pressure of his mouth increased until her head tilted back, allowing him greater access.

      Her breasts crushed against the solid wall of his broad chest, Billie was struggling to breathe and being bombarded by sensations she had forced herself to forget. She had forgotten how gentle he could be and how inventive and her heartbeat was racing like an express train because it had been too long since she had been touched, too long since she had allowed herself to be the passionate woman that she was.

      His tongue darted between her teeth, searching out the moist welcome beyond and then tasting her deep and slow with a rough sensuality that lit a string of firecrackers low in her pelvis. She squirmed as the heat of his mouth on hers grew and the hunger she had tried to deny leapt up inside her in explosive response. The rhythmic plunge of his tongue was matched by the small rocking motions of his hips against hers and her body went nuclear on memories she had suppressed for two years. The barrier of their clothing could not conceal the fact that Gio was erect and ready for her.

      Billie felt him lift her but she was so drunk on the taste and texture of his passionate kisses she ignored the fact. He was more intoxicating than wine and her head swam while powerful pulses of reaction were coiling up from the tight knot forming at the heart of her body. Her back connected with a soft yielding surface and he lifted his proud, dark head, black cropped hair ruffled by her seeking fingers, burnished dark golden eyes holding hers in an exchange so familiar it shook her to her very depths.

      ‘My tie’s choking me,’ he confided huskily, yanking at the offending item, ripping loose the collar of his shirt and, in his impatience, sending the button flying.

      That comment was typical of Gio: an emotional moment instinctively avoided. When she looked at him, though, everything else melted away for her. It was a desire so all-encompassing it thrummed through Billie like a sensual drugging pulse. He shrugged out of his jacket, used his feet to push off her shoes.

      ‘I can’t let you go again, pouli mou.’

      ‘You have to...we can’t do this,’ Billie whispered unevenly, her awareness returning to encompass the giant bed and the elegant furnishings of what was obviously the bedroom of his suite. She was stunned, still dimly wondering how she had got there.

      ‘Open your mouth for me,’ Gio urged with stubborn single-minded zeal. ‘Theos, I love your mouth—’

      Just one more kiss, she bargained with herself frantically, her body coming alive in the most fatally seductive fashion because with the life came the cravings she had successfully shut down. And he tasted like heaven, a banquet for the starving, a delicious drink for the terminally thirsty. Her hands kneaded his bulging biceps and, brushing aside his collar, she pushed her mouth against the corded strength of his neck, licking the salt from his skin. His big body shifted in a jerk against hers, sealing every line of his muscled mass to hers, and the awesomely familiar weight of him and the scent of his skin plunged her back into the past.

      Gio rolled onto his side to drag off her jacket and locate the zip of the dress. He ran it down, stroked it down her arms and fell on the heavenly globes of her full breasts with a hunger he could no more have controlled than he could have stopped breathing.

      Billie surfaced from her sensual spell as her bra fell away and Gio cupped her breasts, thumbing the straining strawberry-pink peaks into swollen buds and then using his mouth, the gliding caress of his teeth and the lash of his tongue to stimulate the sensitive nubs beyond bearing. She couldn’t stay still. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was going to have regrets but she couldn’t listen to them, couldn’t detach herself long enough from the scorching urgency of Gio’s passion or the staggering strength of her own increasing need.

      With a skilled hand he traced the taut triangle of lace stretched between her restive thighs and an inarticulate sound of helpless encouragement broke from her lips. He ravaged her mouth with a wild, devouring kiss and her hips rose, her hands clawing in frustration down the lithe, strong length of his shirt-clad back. Wetness surged to the tender flesh that throbbed. He teased her, stroked her in a sensual torment that drove her to the edge...

      ‘Stop messing about, Gio!’ she suddenly gasped in stricken reproach, her body on such a high it was aching and hurting.

      Unholy amusement lit up neon signs inside Gio’s head and he laughed against her mouth, recalling that she was the only woman who had ever made him laugh in bed. She was also most probably the only woman who could reduce him to the juvenile level of having sex with half his clothes still on. He blanked the thought, the barometer of his mood suddenly darkening, lean, strong face shadowing, but it was no use because he wasn’t in control at that moment, didn’t even want to be in control, simply craved the hot, wet oblivion of burying himself in her as deeply as possible.

      Billie arched up and suddenly he was there, nudging against her indescribably sensitive entrance before driving his long, hard thickness into her tight channel. She cried out, flung her head back and her back arched as she convulsed around him, her cries of helpless pleasure filling the air as he angled back from her and plunged again with dominant force. The hot excitement of his every virile thrust consumed her, sending out eddying ripples of ever-growing pleasure from her womb. The pace became fast and frantic and the friction of his powerful rhythm stimulated her response to an unbearable height, and she bucked before he sent her flying into another powerful climax, ecstasy flooding every inch of her body.

      Within seconds of satiation, Gio turned cold, pushing off the bed and grabbing what little clothing he had removed to head for the bathroom. He was outraged and downright unnerved by the sheer intensity of his own need. Without a doubt, Billie was special, terrific in bed but nothing more, nothing greater, for nobody knew better than Gio Letsos that any form of attachment endangered a man’s power and control. He could keep his hands off her if he had to; obviously he could exist perfectly well without her. Billie was an indulgence, not a necessity.

      As he ripped off what remained of his clothes he rested his hot, damp forehead against the cold tiled wall for several tense seconds, hands coiled into tight fists of angry restraint. For an instant images from the worst day of his life reclaimed him and he broke out into a cold sweat, his quick and clever