Mediterranean Tycoons: Dark & Demanding. Jacqueline Baird

know she possessed, ran her hands down over his chest, discovering the massive breadth, the hard male nipples in the silken whorls of chest hair, her fingers tracing the ridges of perfectly defined muscles. Daringly she dipped lower until she fumbled with the button of his trousers. Nick helped her and obligingly slid off his trousers and boxers.

      Incredibly for a girl who had thought she did not like sex, thought she was frigid, Liza couldn’t stop her fingers from trailing the long, hard length of his erection, curving her slender fingers around him. She had never realised how much she had been missing; his body was beautiful, a tactile feast of epic proportions.

      ‘No.’ His hoarsely groaned command and his hand capturing hers stopped her frenzied exploration. ‘Slowly, Liza, slowly.’ She heard the sharp intake of his breath as their mouths met.

      She wasn’t really conscious of him removing her briefs as desire mounted frantically inside her, driving everything else from her mind, except for the burning need to have Nick there…where the heat was most intense…

      He moved over her and she felt the roughness of his chest against her sensitised nipples. Then his mouth invaded hers yet again, the kiss replicating what she ached for him to do with his body. She wrapped her arms around his broad back and traced the length of his spine, her small hand curving around his hard buttock, her fingers digging into his flesh.

      Liza felt his heart pounding into her almost painfully but she exalted in the feeling, his passion consuming her, and she abandoned herself to the driving hunger that had her in its grip. Her tongue duelled with his, her teeth were creating their own havoc on his lips. But suddenly he reared back, and her arms fell to her sides. ‘Nick,’ she moaned his name, ‘I want you.’

      Nick felt the tremble in her body, the hot, wet heat of her, and heard the husky words emerging from her mouth. Unbearably aroused, he feasted his eyes on her, her hair spread out like a pale cloud across the cover, her dazzling blue eyes dazed with desire, the full, firm, rigid-tipped breasts, her skin as smooth as silk, the exquisite body spread beneath him. He had never seen anything so beautiful, and she wanted him.

      Nick swallowed a pained groan… Now she told him, when he needed no encouragement! Quite the reverse. He reached over to a drawer by the bed and withdrew a condom. Swiftly in one fluid movement he knelt between her legs, not trying to hide his fierce arousal, and nudged her thighs apart, his thumbs rubbing over the velvet lips, and Liza stretched out her arms to him. He gloried in watching her mindless, breathless and needy, oh, so needy, exactly how he wanted her, but his moment of triumph was short-lived.

      Nick could feel his control slipping away as her slender fingers raked down his chest; she was wild and wanton and he was closer to losing it than he had ever been in his life. ‘This time I’d better do the honours, or I won’t make it,’ he rasped.

      ‘Please,’ Liza groaned.

      Please her he would, Nick vowed, and dipped his dark head and brushed his lips against the soft velvet flesh of her inner thigh, even as his hands touched her, stroked her, squeezed her breasts, driving her ever higher. He was wet with sweat, his muscles trembling, and the scent of her, the feel of her was driving him wild, but still he held back. He had the skill to drive a woman mindless and he utilised every atom he possessed to do just that.

      She tensed as his mouth found her, and then she instinctively arched against him, her whole body pulsating with need, every nerve taut, craving for release, spiralling out of control. ‘Nick…Nick. Now,’ she cried out.

      Nick reared up and looked at her with hot black eyes, then slid his hands around her bottom and joined them savagely together with one mighty thrust. Liza gasped, a slight cry escaping her. Nick hesitated, but with barely a pause she wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him on. Her slender body responded to the thrusting hardness of his possession as he moved again and again, deeper and deeper. She was so tight and as the pulsating start of her climax gripped him with a fierce, almost excruciating pleasure he lost it, he had to let go. Together they climaxed in a cataclysmic explosion of raw, primeval passion.

      Liza lay still, her slender body hot, damp and totally replete, her arms around Nick, holding him close. His great body pinned her to the bed, but she didn’t feel his weight, only an incredible possessive thrill that he was hers at last.

      Nothing had prepared her for the wild, primitive passion he aroused in her. She had never realised, never even guessed at the depths of emotion possible between two people. Moisture hazed her eyes, but they were tears of happiness. At last she knew what it was like to be totally possessed by the man who had filled her every erotic thought from puberty, and the beauty, the magic of it was beyond words. How had she ever imagined she hated him?

      She took a deep, contented breath and ran slender fingers gently through the damp strands of his curling black hair. He was hers now, and she listened to the ragged sound of his breathing with a fierce joy. She, Liza Summers, the frigid one, had done this to him and her swollen lips curved in a smile so feline she almost purred…

      Nick turned his head, saw her smile and pressed a swift kiss to her cheek. ‘I’m too heavy for you.’ Leaning up on one elbow, he looked down at her.

      ‘No, you’re perfect for me,’ she murmured. She could see the gleam of masculine satisfaction in his eyes and the hint of a smug grin. ‘Perfect,’ she reiterated, brimming over with happiness. Her teenage dreams had not begun to touch on the awesome reality of Nick as a lover.

      ‘Glad you approved.’ Nick chuckled. ‘But I don’t want to crush you.’ And one elegant hand reached across her slender body to cup her breast, his thumb lazily stroking the tip. ‘There are much more interesting things to do with this exquisite body.’ He trailed his hand down over her stomach. ‘And I intend to explore them all.’

      To her amazement her body stirred in response, her breast swelling. She opened her mouth to remark on the astonishing fact and stopped. Nick looked gorgeous, his black hair tousled and his incredible eyes…

      ‘I think I always knew the skinny, coltish teenager would eventually develop the body to tempt a saint.’

      Liza blinked and looked again…reality clicking in.

      His words had been addressed to her body, not her face, and her brief moment of euphoria was deflated like a burst balloon. He was studying her naked figure like an artist might study a statue. But then why wouldn’t he? she reminded herself. He was an expert and his women were legendary, and he was certainly no saint…

      She felt the colour surge in her cheeks, and her lashes fluttered down to conceal the pain in her eyes.

      ‘Liza.’ She opened her eyes; his face was close and shadowed with stubble, and she had an overwhelming urge to reach up and touch him. ‘You OK?’ His hand moved from her stomach to twine his fingers in a few long strands of hair. ‘You’re sure?’ He tugged on the lock of hair, his dark eyes narrowing intently on her face.

      Amazingly Nick saw she was blushing. Yet she had been everything he imagined and more, wild and willing, he’d never known a woman so responsive. Thinking back, he recalled her shock when he first touched her intimately, her brief flinch, and her slight tensing at times. Perhaps she was not such a promiscuous lady as he had thought. Unless he was very much mistaken it was some time since she’d had a lover and even then not a very expert one if her surprise was anything to go by.

      Embarrassed by his analytical scrutiny Liza sat up. ‘Never better,’ she said brightly, and she gave in to the temptation and lifted her hand and stroked the roughened skin of his jaw. Realising what she was doing, she jerked her hand away and, pulling on the mantle of a sophisticated lady, she added, ‘But isn’t it time we got dressed?’

      She was suddenly very conscious of her nudity, and his, and she was terribly afraid if she didn’t put some space between them quickly she might reveal that what for Nick was simply sex between two consenting adults had meant a whole lot more to her. She had never dreamt that she could feel such an intensity of emotion, such passion. In fact after her only other sexual encounter with a man, her ex-fiancé, she had convinced herself great passion was a myth for a woman. Liza felt the