The Italian's Love-Child. Sharon Kendrick

desperately. ‘We hardly know each other!’

      ‘Have you never kissed a man who is nearly a stranger?’ he murmured. ‘Isn’t there something crazy and wonderful about doing that?’

      Nearly a stranger. There was something so forbidding about that comment, and she tried to focus her mind on it, but all she could feel was the fierce heat of his body and it was remorselessly driving all rational thought from her head. She pushed her hand ineffectually at his chest. ‘That’s beside the point, and besides—how do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?’

      He gave a low laugh. ‘You should not have boys in your life, Eve—there should be only men. And there is no one.’ He drifted a careless fingertip to trace the outline of her lips. ‘Even if there is, he is nothing to you. For you do not want him, cara. You want me.’

      It was ruthless, almost cruel, but it was true. She did.

      He read the invitation in her widened, darkened eyes and brought his mouth crushing down on hers, and as her own opened in sweet response he felt desire jackknife through him with its piercing, flooding weight.

      ‘Oh,’ she sighed helplessly. ‘Oh!’

      He smiled against her lips, sensing capitulation, and Eve dissolved, her fingers flying up to his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh as she felt her knees begin to buckle and threaten to give way. She could taste her breath mingling with his and her body melting against his as he pulled her hard against him.

      Vainly, she fought for control, for some kind of sanity. ‘Luca, for God’s sake—’

      He lifted his head and looked down at her, his dark eyes almost black as they burned into her. ‘What?’ he whispered.

      ‘This is crazy. Mad. I just don’t do this kind of thing!’

      ‘You just did,’ he pointed out arrogantly. ‘And you want to do it again.’

      Yes, she did. She had given him the bait to play masterful and he had taken it and she liked it. Maybe too much. She wondered if he was masterful in bed and the hard, luminous brilliance in his dark eyes told her that, yes, he probably was. But would he give as well as take?

      ‘You do.’ He laughed as he felt her move restlessly against him. ‘Oh, yes, you do.’

      It was a statement, not a question and she didn’t answer, just pressed her hips against his and she felt him jerk into hard life against her, heard the almost tortured little moan he made.

      ‘Signore doce in nel cielo!’ he groaned. He couldn’t remember the last time it had felt like this. And although he couldn’t work out why it should feel that way—and why with this woman—at that moment he didn’t care. Deliberately he circled his hips against her, so that she could feel the rock-hard cradle of him.

      The tight band of wanting inside her snapped, exploded into a need so fervent that Eve was swept away by it. She ran her fingers through his hair while he kissed her, his lips moving from mouth to cheek, to neck and back to her mouth again, and she was transported into a whole new land. A place where nothing mattered other than the moment, and the moment was now.