One Christmas Night In.... Кэрол Мортимер

my usual self today.’

      ‘And is your usual self better or worse than the self you are today?’ she asked curiously.

      ‘I would hope that he is at least more polite than I was just now,’ he admitted ruefully.

      ‘In that case, perhaps you would like to try again?’ she suggested sweetly.

      Dmitri relaxed back in his chair. ‘Please eat before the food gets cold, Lily.’

      ‘Much better,’ she said with approval, and she picked up her fork to twine some of the spaghetti onto its tines before twirling it round. Only to have it fall off again before she could get it to her mouth. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, and tried again.

      He chuckled softly. ‘You do it like this.’ He sat forward to pick up his fork and his spoon to demonstrate how the spoon should be placed on the end of the tines of the fork to keep the pasta in place.

      ‘See?’ He popped the pasta into his mouth.

      Lily saw just fine—in fact, her gaze had been transfixed on his sensually wicked mouth the whole time. She just wasn’t having any success in doing it herself, and forkful after forkful of the slippery pasta fell back into the bowl before making it as far as her mouth. But she was not about to give in and simply chop the spaghetti up and use her spoon to eat it, as she had so often seen other English people do.

      ‘I could just starve to death with my current success rate!’ she muttered, as yet another forkful of pasta fell back into the bowl. ‘Maybe I should stick to the garlic bread!’ She picked up a slice and took a healthy bite.

      ‘Here—let me show you how.’ He was still chuckling as he stood up to come round to her side of the table and bend over beside her, taking the spoon and fork from her unresisting fingers.

      Mistake, Lily realised, tensing as every nerve ending in her body suddenly went on alert at his close proximity. Nor did it help that he looked so much younger, so much more approachable and so much more attractive, when he laughed. Almost boyishly handsome, in fact. Except there was absolutely nothing in the least boyish about Dmitri Scarletti!

      A fact she was only too aware of now, as he stood far too close to her, the warm line of his arm brushing lightly against her shoulder, the loose white shirt falling forward and allowing her to see clearly the firm muscles of his chest and stomach, and the dark hair that lightly covered the whole of his chest before disappearing in a tantalising vee beneath the waistband of his jeans.

      He smelled really good too—of spicy aftershave and hot, earthy male.

      Oh, good Lord!

      ‘Open your mouth, Lily,’ he encouraged.

      She raised startled lids. And then wished she hadn’t as she realised his face was on a level with her own as he bent down beside her. Those pale green eyes were darkening to emerald as she looked at him, his breath a warm caress as she ran her tongue nervously across her slightly parted lips.

      Her mesmerised gaze was transfixed on Dmitri’s lips as he huskily repeated his earlier request. ‘Open your mouth.’ Lily couldn’t drag her gaze away from his as her lips slowly parted—only to have all the tastebuds in her mouth explode in pleasure as he neatly placed a forkful of the pasta carbonara onto her tongue.

      ‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed shakily once she was able to talk at all. ‘That is so good!’ She opened her eyes to look up at him appreciatively. ‘You should open your own restaurant—no, of course you couldn’t do that.’ Lily grimaced as she immediately realised how ridiculous it was even to suggest that Count Scarletti become the chef of his own restaurant.

      Dmitri had been held completely transfixed by the expression of pure ecstasy on her face as she ate the forkful of pasta, his shaft hardening as he was instantly bombarded by thoughts of how she would look exactly that same way in the throes of physical pleasure. Eyes closed. Throat arched. A dreamy smile upon her lips as she became completely lost to that ecstasy …

      His gaze was still riveted on those slightly parted lips as she breathed softly, and his own breath caught in his throat as the pink moistness of her tongue flicked out to lick a tiny smear of the carbonara sauce from her bottom lip.

      Dmitri groaned softly in his throat as the throb of his shaft became almost painful as it grew harder, more swollen, with each rapid beat of his heart. As he imagined his own tongue flicking across the pouting sensuality of Lily’s mouth. Licking. Tasting.

      ‘I think I can manage on my own now, thank you, Dmitri.’

      Lily’s voice shattered those disturbingly sensuous images. He placed the fork and spoon down in her bowl and moved quickly round to the other side of the table, resuming his own seat. Before Lily could become aware of the throbbing evidence of his very obvious arousal.

      This had never happened to him before, Dmitri realised with a frown. This sudden and complete awareness of a woman. And not just any woman, but one specific woman.

      Oh, his relationships had been numerous over the years—brief, businesslike arrangements for the main part, that satisfied the woman’s physical requirements as well as his own, while at the same time demanding nothing from him except the occasional expensive bauble as an added sign of his interest.

      Dmitri had only known Lily a matter of hours, but he already knew her well enough to realise she was the type of woman who would throw any expensive bauble in a man’s face if it was given to her under such circumstances!

      Add into that equation the fact that he was keeping her here against her will—a prisoner in a gilded cage, as she put it so eloquently—and his sudden desire to kiss her, to caress and pleasure her, was the very madness she had accused him of earlier!

      ‘Dmitri?’

      ‘Yes?’ He scowled darkly as he looked across the table at her from between narrowed lids.

      Lily sat back slightly and eyed him warily, not altogether sure what to make of yet another sudden change in his mood. One moment he had been teasing her, the next seeming as if he might actually kiss her and then he had retreated so suddenly it was as if she carried some sort of contagious disease.

      Which was perhaps how he thought of her, believing as he did that her brother was nothing but a fortune-hunter.

      And of course the attractive, the rich, the titled Count Dmitri Scarletti hadn’t been about to kiss her! What on earth was she thinking of? He’d only been being kind when he’d offered to teach her how to eat the pasta properly. The rest of it was purely in her own imagination. She would be wise to put such thoughts completely from her mind when she was the very last woman he would ever allow himself to be attracted to.

      As Lily was attracted to him?

      It would be useless even to try to fool herself into thinking otherwise. How could she possibly attempt to deny the attraction when she was so totally aware of every single thing about the man?

      In fact, she was dangerously close to being infatuated with everything about him—the way he looked, the way he talked, the graceful way he moved, even the way he smelt. She physically ached with the effort of trying to resist her feelings.

      Oh, hell …

      CHAPTER SIX

      THANKFULLY, by the time they had eaten the pasta and garlic bread, and loaded the bowls into the dishwasher, Lily had her wandering imagination back under control. It had been helped along by being able to relax as Dmitri related some of the more amusing stories of his time as a student in England. Designed, no doubt, to put Lily at ease.

      It also didn’t hurt that along the way they’d managed to empty one bottle of red wine and open another.

      In fact, Lily was now so relaxed that she had almost forgotten her reasons for being here with him by the time they sat back down at the table to eat a selection of cheeses and sliced fruit.

      ‘So, what made you decide to take up kick-boxing?’