to anything more.
For the first time, her past didn’t matter.
It was only the present that counted.
Connor signalled to the waiter for the bill and told Mia, ‘The Basilica can wait.’
Chapter Twelve
It’d never been a problem for Connor to admit when he was wrong. As he made his way across the square with Mia to catch a water taxi back to the hotel, he knew he’d been all kinds of wrong about Mia. They walked with their arms around each other’s waists and it was good to have her at his side.
He still had questions about her, but his instinct told him she had difficulties trusting others—not that she was someone who couldn’t be trusted. If he could win her trust, he believed she’d open up. He wanted to know her, but right now he was ruled by his desire.
He burned for Mia.
‘It’s such a perfect day.’ There was a sigh in her voice.
He brushed his lips against her temple, enjoying the fragrance of her hair and the silky feel of it against his cheek. ‘I promise you it will be.’
‘I believe you.’
Being her first lover added an extra edge to his anticipation and a need to make this perfect for her. Becoming lovers had a certain inevitability to it and even a sense of rightness. It blew him away how strongly connected he felt to her after the brief period of time they’d shared in each other’s company; especially given his initial suspicion and resentment.
Mia’s untutored lips were the sweetest temptation and left him wanting far more. Their first kiss… Well, his own reactions had been captured in Peppi’s prints and he’d felt completely exposed until he’d seen Mia’s expression echoing his own.
From that moment, Connor had wanted to forget the day of sightseeing and take her back to the hotel. The exquisite Alcova Tiepolo Suite, with its magnificent eighteenth-century frescoes on the ceiling, was his idea of perfect sightseeing if viewed from the bed with Mia. Now they were heading back there.
‘Mia, I’m not taking you to bed lightly.’
A little tinkle of laughter escaped from her lips. ‘You’re telling me you’ll still respect me in the morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, because your respect is important to me.’
He promised himself he’d employ every bit of erotic expertise he possessed to deliver her a slow, sweet seduction that would saturate her senses with sheer bliss. He would awaken her untried body to its mysteries until every one of her nerve synapses was singing with pleasure, and every cell, fibre and muscle screamed for release before hurtling towards heaven. And afterwards, when she was languorous and sated, he’d hold her until she fell asleep in his arms.
His blood surged south as he played out the scenario in his mind.
Good lord! Was his hand trembling as he lifted it to knead the muscles of one of her shoulders?
Mia shifted against him in the water taxi, turned back to him and planted a kiss on his stubbled jaw line. ‘Nearly there.’
The longing in her voice made his chest tighten. It wasn’t the only part of him that was uncomfortably tight.
‘Your suite or mine?’ she asked breathlessly a few minutes later when they docked at the hotel jetty.
‘Mine.’
When the suite door closed behind them, Mia dropped her bag on the floor and turned to him with a shy smile.
His heart hammered and his shaft throbbed as she walked to him. Her slender arms reached up around his neck and she initiated a slow kiss. It was a feathering of her lips against his, working up to the foray of her tongue tip along his lower lip before venturing in to play with his tongue.
Each stroke of their tongues was electric.
The heat of her palms scalded him through his shirt and he couldn’t wait to be rid of it and come into skin to skin contact with his innocent seductress.
‘Too many clothes,’ she husked, as though she could read his mind.
Connor took a half step away from her to lift her top over her head. The vision of her full breasts cupped demurely in white lace reminded him of her purity. Her flat stomach, hand-span waist and perfectly curved hips were all unexplored territory; his territory to awaken.
‘You’re temptation personified,’ he said on a hoarse whisper. ‘So desirable.’
‘Show me how desirable I am, Connor. For these few days, make me feel like I’m the most desirable woman in your world.’
You are. He let one hand cup the nape of her neck as the other eased her hair from its