Mediterranean Tycoons: Dark & Demanding. Jacqueline Baird

her back against the pillows, and captured both of her flaying hands in one of his and pinned them above her head, his long body pressing her to the bed, and then he was kissing her again with a hard, deep hunger that set her on fire.

      Suddenly the reason for her resistance was lost in the chaos he made of her mind. She tried to pull her hands free to hold him and with another husky chuckle Nick lifted his head and stared down into her flushed face.

      ‘No, my lovely, I am not setting you free. I missed you in my bed last night.’ Instantly she was flooded with an emotion so powerful she nearly told him, she didn’t want to be free of him ever… Surely he could see that. He might be an overbearing, arrogant chauvinist, but she knew deep within her soul that he was everything she could ever want or need in a man.

      She wanted back the friend she had missed, the lover she had only just discovered, and the intellectual and emotional strength that he had given so generously to a young girl before the episode that had made him her enemy.

      ‘Your mother…’ She made a weak attempt to object but her heart wasn’t in it. It was in her mouth as he kissed her again. She couldn’t get enough of his mouth, her tongue seeking his in a dance of desire that met and matched him with ever deeper abandon. She slid her hands over his shoulders removing his robe in the process.

      His mighty chest heaved and finally Nick lifted his head, his breathing harsh and his eyes staring into hers with burning satisfaction. ‘Has no one ever told you it is not a good idea to remind a man of his mother at a time like this?’ he husked, the tension holding Nick’s huge, powerful body taut over hers relaxing slightly as he shrugged off the robe completely. His heavy thigh slid over her slender hips and his hand splayed under her bottom, and pulled her into fierce connection with the rigid strength of his erection, sending quivering arrows of exquisite delight up from the apex of her thighs to spread through every nerve in her body.

      Lifting his eyes to hers, a gleam of devilment lurking in their depths, he said throatily, ‘But maybe you’re right. You just reminded me of the first pleasure in a male’s life—the joy of suckling.’

      Leaning back, he looked his fill of the perfect mounds of her breasts, pale as magnolia with erect, rosy peaks. His hands cupped and shaped them, his thumbs teasing the straining nubs until Liza moaned her pleasure, and only then did he bury his hot mouth against her aching breasts. He laved his tongue over a rigid tip and then drew the tight bud into his mouth and suckled gently.

      Helplessly Liza ran her fingers through the thick black hair of his head and urged him to deliver the same ecstasy to its aching counterpart and he obliged.

      ‘You like that,’ Nick teased and then replaced his mouth with his hands, rolling the distended, dusky nipples between his thumb and forefinger, while he trailed a burning line of kisses down over her flat stomach.

      He nudged her long legs apart and, swamped in sensation after sensation, Liza helped him, and when his mouth delivered the most intimate kiss of all she welcomed it. Her slender hands grasped his wide shoulders and tremor after tremor shook her whole body, her nails dug into his flesh as the pressure heightened and heightened, until she thought she would die, and then suddenly it happened.

      Nick reared up and, lifting her, plunged into the shuddering heat of her in one driving movement. ‘Dios! You feel fantastic, unbelievable.’

      ‘So do you!’ Liza cried out as she took all of him, and as he began to move she convulsed and convulsed again in a shattering climax. Her blue eyes flew wide and collided with molten black and his dark head bent and took her mouth in a deep, almost yearning kiss.

      Incredibly the pleasure was rising again as Nick moved in a sensual rhythm, a driving urgency that Liza met and matched in a primitive, wild abandon that had her whimpering and crying out with pleasure. Then she felt Nick’s ferocious tension, and one last desperate plunge that seemed to rock her very womb. She climaxed again as his great body shuddered over her. He groaned out something in Spanish but she was too far gone to hear, as his life force poured into her.

      He had given her more pleasure than she had ever imagined existed, and yet when it was finally over, and their sweat-slicked bodies lay entwined in exhausted abandon, she felt the chill tendrils of fear snake through her tired mind.

      Nick had only to appear for her to collapse into his arms. How on earth was she going to hide her helpless reaction to him? Nick was conceited and arrogant enough already about women if the gossip columns were to be believed. He did not need her adding to his tally.

      ‘Nick, Nick.’ She pushed at his broad shoulders. ‘Please get up.’

      ‘What?’ His tousled head lifted and he thrust up off the pillow, releasing her from his weight. ‘Flattered as I am you think I am capable,’ he lay half over her and pushed her tumbled hair back from her flushed face, ‘it is going to take me a little longer to recover,’ he teased with a lazy smile, while his fingers toyed with her long blonde hair, smoothing a few strands down the elegant line of her neck, and over a slender shoulder.

      Inflamed by his teasing comment and suddenly aware it was broad daylight, ‘It’s the middle of the morning,’ Liza yelped. He knew damn fine what she meant, and she jerked her head free and wriggled out from under him, and dragged herself up into a sitting position. Nick collapsed down on his back and slanted her a wicked grin.

      ‘So…’ he drawled. ‘You’re not so innocent as to believe people only make love at night.’ Nick laughed.

      It was the laugh that did it. Liza glanced down at him. He looked incredible, she thought, swallowing hard, his tanned torso sleek and vibrant against the blue sheets, his black hair flopping over his brow, and his sinful black eyes glinting with mocking amusement.

      ‘It’s not in the least amusing,’ she snapped, her temper rising, along with it a great dollop of embarrassment at how easily he had overcome her scruples about making love in his mother’s house, conveniently ignoring that she had wanted him to!

      ‘What will Manuel, your mother think? They might be back any minute.’ She was getting into her stride. ‘But then I don’t suppose the great Nick Menendez ever needs to consider other people’s feelings, you arrogant swine.’ She was overreacting…being an absolute bitch…but with emotions raw and new tearing at her heart she didn’t seem able to stop herself. Yet she knew it was her own sense of insecurity making her behave so unlike her usual calm self.

      Nick jerked up, his lean face strong and taut, and for a split-second Liza saw a flash of raw fury in his dark eyes, and then his sensuous mouth curved in a faint smile.

      ‘A stickler for propriety, Liza, and this from a girl who had no qualms about rolling around with a man in the stable of this same house,’ he drawled sardonically.

      All Liza’s confidence and any attempt at sexual sophistication shrivelled and died. She felt as if he had knifed her in the stomach, the pain was so intense she could not look at him. Nick had never changed his mind about her. He never would, and she had foolishly thought she could have a holiday romance.

      Romance! What a joke. Sex with her was just a game to him. A game he wanted to win. The same as he won everything else he set out to achieve.

      Nick saw the hurt in her eyes, before she turned her head away, and he immediately wished the mocking words unsaid. He remembered his anger at finding Liza in the arms of that boy, but he had no right to throw it back at her, and especially not when he was lying naked in bed with her. How crass was that? And totally out of character for him. For once in his life he was ashamed of himself. He admired women and prided himself on his courteous treatment of any woman he became involved with.

      Was he going mad? No, it was Liza; she was driving him crazy. His usual cool control deserted him as soon as he got anywhere near her. Volatile emotions were not something he had ever suffered from and it was all her fault. His dark eyes swept over her near-naked figure and he almost groaned.

      Pride and anger coming to the fore, Liza made herself look at him. ‘I was sixteen and foolish,’ she snapped, and for a second she thought he winced. No, not the mighty Nick, she