Mediterranean Tycoons: Dark & Demanding. Jacqueline Baird

to his feet, he crossed to a cream leather sofa. Slipping off his jacket and tugging his tie loose in the process, he dropped them and his long length down on it, his angry eyes raking over her. Frustration wasn’t the word!

      Liza was a walking, talking sex goddess. Either in trousers and a cheap top with her glorious hair scraped back in a childish pony-tail, as he had seen her this morning, or with her hair a tumbled mass around her shoulders and elegant in black wrap-around dress that was just begging to be unwrapped. Crook or not, she turned him on without even trying.

      ‘To hell with it!’ he swore under his breath. Keeping her out of jail did not mean he had to keep her out of his bed. She had matured into an incredibly sexy, sophisticated lady, and he was acting like an idiot. He was a man who prided himself on his control and anger bubbled beneath the surface of his smooth smile as he gestured with one hand to the adjoining sofa.

      ‘Take a softer seat. You’ll be more comfortable,’ he offered, and watched as she rose from the aircraft seat, her hands nervously sweeping the smooth fabric of her dress over her hips, and he almost groaned out loud.

      She looked so shy, almost innocent, and that was part of her charm, or her act, he reminded himself cynically, and, unfolding his long length from the sofa, he stepped towards her. ‘But perhaps a guided tour first,’ he suggested, curving his hand over her shoulder. ‘The plane is divided into three compartments—this seating area, a bedroom and restroom.’

      Liza had never seen anything like it. How the other half lives, she thought drily, but it was luxury with a capital L. Soft leather sofas and chairs, an occasional table and thick cream carpet, a bar in one corner, near a door that led to the galley and to the flight deck. Nick had introduced her to the captain and crew when they boarded. At the opposite end towards the rear of the aircraft was a corridor with a couple more doors leading off. She knew people who lived in smaller apartments than this plane; the thought made her smile.

      ‘It all looks very luxurious and very expensive.’ She lifted sparkling blue eyes to his. ‘It must be great to be so rich you can have your own aircraft.’

      The smile in her eyes took his breath away. But her comment also made him wonder if she was greedy for money. Thief, gold-digger, he didn’t give a damn.

      ‘It has its compensations.’ Nick’s voice roughened as he turned her into his arms, and did what he had been aching to do since they left the villa. He ran his hands down the shapely length of her supple body, felt her tremble and then crushed her ruthlessly against the hard heat of his own. Using his innate masculine ability to arouse her, he quite deliberately lowered his head and brushed her pouting lips with his.

      She was sweet, so sweet… He tasted her with lips and tongue, savouring her like a connoisseur of fine wine, and then he deepened the kiss until he felt her slender arms wrap around his neck. He lifted his head, the briefest of triumphant smiles curling his hard mouth, and, drawing a deep, rasping breath, he took a chance. ‘Let me show you.’ He didn’t add ‘the bedroom’ he didn’t need to.

      Liza didn’t know what hit her—one minute she was talking to him, and the next she was enfolded in Nick’s arms. The mere touch of him had turned her legs to water, and when he kissed her a surge of heat enveloped her whole body. She clung to him, and when he smiled at her she began to tremble as she gazed at him in mesmerised fascination.

      He was incredibly handsome with the most gorgeous, slumberous, come-to-bed eyes, dark as night and yet with a sensual gleam as gold as the rising sun. He had to be over six feet four, he was the only man she had ever met she really had to look up to. Her mouth ran dry and she felt a sudden heaviness in her breasts as her nipples tightened in helpless response.

      Show her what? The thought crossed her mind but was lost as one long finger traced the outline of her full lips, then moved along her jawline to curve around her ear. She involuntarily swayed into him as his large hand moved swiftly on to the nape of her neck, his long fingers burrowing under the heavy fall of her hair. His hand was smooth but she was intensely aware of the strength in his grip, and for a second she stiffened in apprehension.

      But then he lowered his head once more, and his mouth traced the curve of her cheek, tantalisingly close to her. Heat kindled in the pit of her stomach, and she couldn’t think straight, didn’t try… This was what she wanted, what she yearned for, and she turned her head slightly to find his teasing lips with her own.

      A wild recklessness swept through her as his mouth took hers with a ruthless, demanding passion that in seconds had her on fire. Her slender fingers tangled through his silky black hair as his tongue delved deep, and she welcomed the hard, savage mouth, gloried in the meeting. They kissed with a ferocious hunger that emptied her head of everything but a growing deep physical ache that curled and tightened in the centre of her body.

      Suddenly she was swept up in his arms, and her head fell back as his tongue licked down every inch of her throat to the shadow between her breasts. Liza closed her eyes and felt her whole body melting bonelessly in his arms, and then slowly he raised his head.

      ‘Look at me,’ Nick demanded. ‘Is this what you want, Liza?’ he asked in a deep slightly accented drawl.

      Her dazed blue eyes clashed with jet black, and for a second she saw a look of such predatory hunger in his expression some tiny corner of her mind tried to warn her to be wary. She dragged in a ragged breath, trying to fight the pull of his attraction. ‘The steward,’ she murmured inanely. He had asked earlier if they wanted a drink and Nick had dismissed him, but…

      ‘It is more than his job’s worth.’ Nick declared with arrogant certainty, but the slight colour tracing his high cheekbones and the clenching of his fingers in her hair told her he was no less affected by the desire flooding through them than she was. Her pupils dilated to almost obscure the blue, she opened her mouth to reply, but, reading the answer in her eyes, he did not wait.

      He shouldered the door open and in two strides he lowered her down onto the large bed. Discarding his shirt, his great body looming over her, he reached down and untied the knot at her waist and peeled her dress open.

      Liza should have been shy, exposed in only black lace briefs, but her eyes widened on his lean, strong face, her pulse racing as she checked down to the broad shoulders. All her attention was captured by the perfection of his tanned, muscular chest, the intriguing pattern of black curling body hair that arrowed down to where his trousers hung low on his hips. He was her dream come true, she had waited what felt like a lifetime for this man, and at last she was trembling on the brink of knowing the full wonder of Nick, her heart’s secret desire.

      ‘You are exquisite,’ Nick growled, his gaze roaming over her near-naked length, before he sank down beside her, and ran his long fingers through the silken mass of her hair. He then trailed one long strand with teasing expertise over a firm breast, a rosy tip, and watched her nipple tighten, saw her body arch in an involuntary motion she could not hide. He surveyed her hungrily. ‘Ravishing…’ and that was exactly what he intended doing to her…

      Hypnotised by his slow, sensual exploration, Liza caught her breath as he reached for her. Stripping her dress from her shoulders, his hands were everywhere. One skimming over her breasts, the other tracing the length of her leg from knee to thigh, while with lips and tongue he tormented her with kisses and tantalising caresses over her face and throat.

      ‘So are you,’ she breathed, so caught up in the excitement, the pleasure he aroused, she was scarcely aware of what she was saying. Long fingers traced her inner thigh, and brushed against the scrap of black lace. Liza groaned out loud, as at the same time his teeth found a dusky nipple and teased with tiny bites.

      Unbelievable sensations arrowed through her body as he began to suckle before he turned his attentions to the other rigid peak. He didn’t hurry, he suckled and licked, and at the same time his seeking fingers slipped beneath the black lace and stroked the hot wet centre of her femininity. Her eyes widened in shocked pleasure before he took her lips in a brief, hard kiss, and continued his tantalising exploration of every inch of her until she was writhing on the bed like a woman possessed.

      Liza grasped his broad