Seduction Assignment: The Seduction Season / The Marriage Deal / The Husband Assignment. HELEN BIANCHIN

      Anneke let her fingers splay over taut muscles at his shoulders, trailed them to explore his ribcage, then slid down over his flanks to urge him close.

      ‘Non, mon ange. We are just beginning.’

      He took pleasure in the tasting of her skin, every inch of it, with the pads of his fingers, his lips. And felt her pulse quicken, her breath become erratic and fast.

      Her body began to feel like the strings of a finely tuned violin, his touch creating magic that reverberated along each nerve fibre until her whole being sang to a tune that had never been played.

      The feeling was so intense she could hardly bear it, and her hands became more urgent as she began to plead with him to ease the ache deep within.

      He soothed her as she arched against him, caressing the moist heat with a touch that brought her to one explosive climax after another.

      It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and she became a wild wanton in his arms, pliant, bewitching, his.

      He entered her slowly, allowing the silken tissues to stretch to accommodate him, then he drove forward with one powerful thrust.

      Anneke gasped at the level of penetration, absorbed it, then met and matched his rhythm, unable to prevent the soft guttural cries that escaped her lips as he took her higher and higher to the brink, held her there, then caught her when she fell. And kissed the light tears as they trickled from her eyes.

      Sebastian curled her close in the circle of his arms, and she dozed for a while, then stirred at the movement of a hand sliding low over one hip.

      He was asleep. His breathing hadn’t changed. She began a slow, tactile exploration of her own, skimming over warm skin, strong muscle and sinew to his pelvis, lightly examining the faint hollow, the keloid puckering of a surgical scar.

      She let her fingers trail up over his ribcage to the dark smattering of hair on his chest. Hair that was light and springy, and different in texture from the glossy length he wore bound at his nape.

      More than anything she wanted to explore the angles and planes of his sculpted features, the chiselled cheekbones, the hard jaw, the sensitive lines of his mouth.

      Most of all she wanted to wake him. To feel again the power of his body as he joined it with hers. The acutely intense spiral of sensation that mixed pleasure with pain, then transcended both to rapturous ecstasy.

      He’d shown her remarkable tendresse. Now she wanted his passion, unbridled, shameless and primitive.

      A hand reached for hers, caught it, and brought it to his lips. Her heart almost stopped, then quickened to a faster beat as she raised her head and met a pair of dark eyes lambent with molten desire.

      ‘You’re awake.’

      Without a word he kissed each finger in turn, savoured her palm, then grazed the fragile veins at her wrist.

      One slight tug, and she lay sprawled across his chest.

      She gained purchase on his shoulders and leant forward to kiss him, loving the feeling of power as he let her take control.

      The sensual tasting tested his strength, and just when he thought he could stand it no longer she slid down onto him. Her movements were deliberately slow as she completed one erotic circle after another until it drove him wild. His hands bit into her waist, then splayed over her hips, holding her still as he drove into her again and again, until it was she who cried out, and their voices mingled in a mutual expression of wild, untamed passion.

      Afterwards, when the spiralling subsided and their breathing returned to normal, he pulled her close and held her there.

      Her hair was a mass of tangles from where he’d raked his hands through its length, and he soothed it gently, feeling its texture, the long silken strands that fell in a cloud over her shoulders.

      He kissed her, long and deep, then he buried his mouth in the soft hollow of her neck as she slept.

      Again and again they turned to each other in the night. As the light fingers of dawn filtered through the windows they rose from the bed and showered, only to return to bed to sleep until the shrill peal of the phone sounded loud in the morning stillness.

      Sebastian kissed her briefly as she lifted her head and groaned. ‘You’d better answer it, mon amie.’

      Who could be ringing at this hour? She spared a glance at the bedside clock, and jolted upright. My God, midday!

      She scrambled out of bed, grabbed the sheet and wrapped it round her naked form, then stumbled as the tucked-in portion stubbornly refused to part from the mattress.

      Sebastian chuckled as she swore, and leaned forward to wrench it free.

      Anneke raced into the kitchen, lifted the receiver and heard her aunt’s anxious tones on the other end of the line.

      Thinking quickly on her feet after a long night of loving and very little sleep was difficult. ‘I was in the shower.’ A necessary untruth, and she shivered as she felt Sebastian’s lips nuzzle her neck. When his hands unbound the sheet, there was little she could do except shake her head at him in silent remonstrance.

      ‘Is everything all right, darling?’ Aunt Vivienne queried. ‘You sound a little…strange.’

      His lips sought her breasts, savoured the swollen peaks, then bit gently into the tender softness.

      On a strangled note she ended the call, replaced the receiver, then allowed herself to be pulled into his arms.

      ‘You’re insatiable,’ Anneke said unsteadily as his teeth nipped an earlobe.

      ‘In a minute, I’m going to collect my clothes, go home, and spend what’s left of the day at the computer.’ His lips trailed to her temple, caressed the fast-beating pulse there, then travelled down to the edge of her mouth. ‘I have a deadline to meet before I leave for Paris.’

      She turned her mouth to meet his, and wondered if she’d ever be able to survive after he left. ‘I’ll bring dinner.’