Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,29

this wildly passionate creature? Wouldn’t doing that only expose her vulnerability and appeal to his remarkable arrogance? And anyway—how could she think straight when his hands were stroking her like that? ‘It’s not a … game,’ she stumbled.

‘No?’ He kissed her again, flicking his tongue into her mouth. Then what was it? When had he last felt like this? As if this were what he had been created for? Yet with this vitality came an odd and debilitating weakness—a feeling that she had him in her power—and Gianluca sought to wrest it back again, for no woman ever had supremacy over him.

He slid his hand further down, feeling her squirm beneath his fingers as he let it drift down to her thighs and then let out a small groan of dismay. ‘You’re wearing tights!’ he accused hotly. ‘Why not stockings?’

‘Because they’re impractical,’ she breathed. ‘And they can sometimes show, if you’re not careful. Tights are much more suitable for a dress like this.’

‘Not with legs like yours,’ he murmured. But it interested him to think that she was wearing the biggest turnoff known to man. Which suggested that she had not come out tonight with seduction in mind. Either that, or she was playing a remarkably disingenuous game.

He brushed the silken ebony hair back from her pale skin and stared into the blue eyes. ‘Shall I play a game with you?’ he questioned unsteadily. ‘Shall I take you now? Here? On the floor? Or up against the wall? Do you have any objections to that, cara?’

Aisling shook her head. Was he trying to shock her? To remind her that this meant nothing more than one night? Her knees weakened as she clung to his broad shoulders. Everything about him was designed to make her want him. The lean, hard body and the muscular shaft of his thigh which was pushing against hers. Only the clinical words jarred—but not enough to make her push him away.

‘Shall I?’ he murmured, skating a provocative little circle at the top of her thigh. ‘Or shall I make you wait?’

But the way he was stroking her was making her tremble. ‘No. Don’t. Anything but that.’ She shook her head as she moved her body distractedly against his. ‘Please don’t make me wait.’ Because it seemed like an eternity since he had last held her like this.

His mouth was at her throat and he smiled with triumph at her eager capitulation. He could feel the pulse of her beating against his lips, her silk-covered breasts pressing against him, and he felt himself growing hard.

And suddenly he didn’t want to wait, either. Couldn’t wait. Not when she was writhing into him like that. Sensual little witch. Even with the tights. With an unexpectedly violent tug, he began to jerk down the side zip of the dress, but he felt a resistance and when he lifted his head to see that it was stuck, he swore in heated Italian. ‘Do something,’ he clipped out. ‘Let me rip the whole damned thing off!’

She stared down at it, hot breath spilling out—tempted to tell him to go right ahead. But years of living from handto-mouth could not be overcome in a moment of passion and Aisling stayed his hand with her own. ‘No!’ she protested. ‘These are the only clothes I have with me. And how can I possibly walk out of here in a ripped dress?’

‘I will send out for a new one,’ he stated arrogantly.

But his words only increased her resolve. She wasn’t some little wannabe—eager to be fobbed off with Gianluca’s charity in the form of a replacement wardrobe. She could buy her own clothes, thank you very much. She shook her head and began to fiddle around with the zip. ‘No. Let me.’

Gianluca’s eyes narrowed for a moment in anger and then he began to laugh. ‘Ever the practical!’ he mocked, but he watched as she freed the zip, and then carefully stepped out of the dress.

‘I’d better go and hang this up,’ she said.

He stared at her incredulously. Was she aware that no woman had ever broken the sexual mood quite so unashamedly with such a mundane little request? And yet the sheer ordinariness of the situation somehow took him aback.

Women usually did perform for him, he realised. He only ever saw them at their best—all painted and perfumed and ready for love. He couldn’t think of another female who would have worn tights and turned down his offer of another outfit—nor one who would