One Night On The Virgin's Terms - Melanie Milburne Page 0,53

breath as she flicked the little gold latch and opened the lid. Lying on a cream velvet bed was a pink diamond pendant on an exquisitely fine white-gold chain with a matching pair of droplet earrings. ‘Oh, my goodness...’ She stared at them in amazement, struck by their beauty and his thoughtfulness. ‘They’re just divine. Thank you so much.’

‘Do you want to try them on?’

She gave him a rueful smile. ‘I’m not sure they’ll be shown off to their best advantage while I’m wearing your bathrobe, as expensive and luxurious as it is.’

His grey-blue eyes smouldered. ‘There’s an easy solution to that.’

He reached for the waist ties of the bathrobe and slowly, deliberately, untied them, all the while holding her gaze in an unwavering lock. Then he slipped the bathrobe off her shoulders, his eyes hungrily travelling over her naked flesh. The garment fell to the floor at her feet and he took the jewellery box from her.

‘Turn around.’ His commanding tone made a shiver run up and down her spine, so too the brush of his fingers as he fastened the pendant around her neck. He placed a warm, firm hand on one of her shoulders to turn her back round. ‘You’d better put the earrings on yourself.’

He handed them to her and she slipped them through her pierced earlobes. ‘How do I look?’

His gaze swept over her again. ‘Ravishing.’ He placed his hands on her hips and brought her up against him. She was left in no doubt of how ravishing he found her—he was as hard as stone—and her lower body responded with hot little flickers of lust. He brought his mouth down to hers in an incendiary kiss that set off fireworks and bombs in her blood. Heat raced through her system, molten heat that made every cell in her body throb and ache with rampaging need. He deepened the kiss with a silken thrust of his tongue, calling hers into intimate play, teasing, cajoling, captivating her senses until she was whimpering with delight.

Somehow his towel fell to the floor, but she couldn’t remember if she’d tugged it off or he had. All that mattered was it was off, and she could feel him rising against her belly, the velvet and steel of his form inciting her to even greater dizzying heights of arousal. Her body was slick, her legs trembling, her spine loosening.

‘I want you so damn much.’ He growled against her lips, his hands moving from her hips to cup her breasts. He brought his mouth to each breast in turn, licking and circling each tightly budded nipple with his tongue. The sensations rioted from her breasts throughout her body on intricate networks of sheer pleasure.

Ivy grasped his head in her hands, bringing his mouth back to hers. ‘I want you too. So much it’s like a pain.’

His eyes gleamed with erotic promise, his lips tilted in a smile that sent another wave of heat through to her core. ‘Then let’s do something about that, shall we?’ He picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom, placing her on the bed and coming down beside her.

Ivy waited with bated breath as he reached past her to get a condom. He applied it and came back to her. He stroked her from shoulder to thigh and back again, his eyes smoky with lust. ‘I think we’re going to lose that dinner booking. Do you mind?’

She linked her arms around his neck and smiled. ‘Not one little bit.’

As it turned out, they didn’t lose the dinner booking, in spite of the mind-blowing sex they’d shared. Louis was nothing if not ruthlessly efficient when it came to giving her pleasure. Her body was still tingling and her lips still swollen from his passionate kisses.

Later that night, Louis sat opposite Ivy at an intimate table in the window of the restaurant a short walk from his apartment. The current of electricity between them seemed to have followed them to the restaurant. Every time she glanced at him, she felt the zap and crackle of energy pass from his gaze to hers. When he reached for her hand across the table, her inner core spasmed with a pleasurable ache.

Ivy picked up her champagne glass and took a sip, conscious of Louis’ gaze steadily watching her. She put her glass back down. ‘What are you thinking?’ It was a bold question to ask but the mood seemed right. Their earlier lovemaking had shifted something in their relationship. Or