“Do you think I can’t?”
“Of course you can’t,” she scoffed.
Mistake.
Big, big mistake.
Because it was then, Douglas kissed her. Pressing his body full against hers and with nowhere to run, no way to get away, she was forced to endure.
And she had to endure. She had to prove she was immune to him. She had to prove that the morning in the dining room was a fluke.
But the heat shimmered through his body to hers, her br**sts were pressed against his hard chest, his mouth was teasing, tempting.
Dear Lord.
Julia managed to keep her mouth resolutely shut and tried to think of things that were very unsexy. She thought of the doodle art he patronised for the gallery and that was a good start. Pleased with herself, she stiffened her body in resistance.
Douglas, unfortunately, was not deterred. His arms, which had slid around her, pulled her from the wall and moulded her to him, br**sts against chest; soft, yielding h*ps against hard, straining ones. One arm held her firmly about the waist while the other hand slid down, softly, gently, over her bottom.
His hand at her bottom felt good. Oh God. Too good.
As tingles shot across her skin, she thought harder about the doodles then her mind flashed to him handing her a glass of champagne. Then to him sitting in the Bentley and talking about her perfume. Then to him holding her face gently in his hands and stroking her jaw and bottom lip while she told her tale of woe last night. Her resolve quickly flagged as the tingles matured to delicious tremors.
She groaned in despair, low in her throat, and pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him away while his teeth nibbled at her lips in an illicit and enticing way, his one wayward hand had moved up her side and was now stroking, slowly, achingly slowly, against the side of her breast.
“Stop it!” she finally cried, turning her face away but he didn’t stop. He was relentless. His mouth trailed down her cheek to her neck.
This was big mistake number two. The skin of Julia’s neck was sensitive. As he dragged his lips, whisper-soft, along her neck to nip at her earlobe she felt shivers shoot through her body. Her br**sts swelled against her will, straining against his chest and she wriggled against him to get away from his mouth. Her stomach was melting, her legs were going weak and his heat was penetrating her body everywhere it touched.
“Kiss me,” he urged in her ear, his deep voice like velvet and a fresh shudder tore through her.
“No,” she denied, her breath coming fast.
“Kiss me once and I’ll leave you alone,” he promised, his head coming up to look at her.
She felt a flash of hope. “Now and forever, no more talk about marriage, no more of these… episodes?” She pressed him verbally as she pushed against his chest.
He grinned, then rubbed his lips back and forth against her firmly closed ones and she longed to stop that intimate caress by pressing her lips to his.
“No,” he finally stopped his torture to reply against her mouth.
She dug deep into the last reserves of her strength. “Then no, I won’t kiss you, now or –”
His hand, which had been stroking the side of her breast quickly lowered, going under her denim shirt, under her thermal t-shirt and up her belly.
“What are you…?” she breathed against his mouth, trying to sound in control but everywhere he touched sent a path a fire, her muscles contracting as his hand caressed its way from her belly upwards, the whole time he watched her face, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“Please don’t,” she begged on a whisper, not caring how weak she sounded because she knew she couldn’t endure much more.
This was Douglas, handsome, compelling Douglas and she’d had a crush on him since the moment she laid eyes on him.
Not to mention, it had been a long time for her, a dry spell, an enormous dry spell and it was like not eating for months and then being shown to a five-star, gourmet banquet. Douglas, so close, pressed against her, his hand working wonders, was the banquet and she, unfortunately, felt like gorging herself.
His hand cupped her breast over her bra, his thumb rubbing against her nipple and Julia instantly melted. She closed her eyes and moaned low in her throat, the workings of his thumb shooting dizzying shafts of pleasure from her nipple downward through her belly straight between her legs.
She bit her lip in an effort at control just as she clutched at his shirt.
“Stop it,” Julia whispered, her eyes flying open to see the satisfaction on his face.