warmth of his breath tickling her face, and even if the kiss that was surely about to ensue was only for the cameras, for the sake of the hidden audience that might be watching, before his lips even met hers Lydia knew it would be one she would remember for ever.
His chin was scratching, dragging slowly along her pale, alert flesh, so slow it was almost painful. Yet it had the desired effect. His decadent stealth banished her fear and skilfully replaced it with need—a need that was physical, a need that was palpable. Her lips twitched with desire, her body flaming in its treacherous response to his touch, and lingering misgivings were gone completely. His touch had her moving her lips to his, and so magnetic was his force that reason and doubt were erased, and it was Lydia moving things along, Lydia’s mouth searching for his, and finally, deliciously, finding it.
She relished in the bruising weight of his mouth against hers, the cool of his tongue as it parted her willing lips, the soldering feel of his hand in the small of her back as he pulled her a fraction closer, fanning the flames of desire. Her insides literally melting, she felt her fingers let go of the edge, but the bottom of the pool was too deep for her to stand. He supported her easily, her body weightless in the water, his arms holding her as his mouth ravished her, warm, muscular thighs tipping her further into heady oblivion.
Her swollen nipples were straining against Lycra, and heat was flaring between her legs. The need that imbued her was still not satisfied, the taste of such pleasure making Lydia greedier now, hungry for more. And Anton reciprocated. The nudge of his erection against her taut stomach was faint-making as she pressed provocatively against it, fuelling a primitive desire Lydia had never, not even in her most intimate moments, fully experienced—a total and utter abandonment, a complete, delicious loss of control.
He made her bold, made her wanton, provocative, immersed her in passion.
Her mind was completely focussed now on her own desires, on the pulse flickering between her legs. Her clitoris was engorged, twitching with want, and only this man could satisfy it. Still he kissed her, ravished her, but his mouth was moving now, tracing her neck, kissing the hollows. He buried his face in her dripping hair, and her fingers dug into his shoulders, and in a movement that was as provocative as it was instinctive she raised her hips several decadent inches. His fingers pressed into the warm flesh of her taut buttocks and the deep, languorous, throaty kiss was abandoned as she glided her swollen, most intimate lips along the endless, solid length of his manhood.
His breath was hot on the shell of her ear as she nestled the heat of her centre on the tip of his. She wanted him to take her, to part the tiny inch of fabric that covered her most private place. Wanted him to fill her, to calm the frenzy of her body beneath the still surface of the water. Her stomach tightened in rhythmic contraction and her legs wrapped around him as he pressed his velvet steel harder against her. Heady, drunken, faint, Lydia rested her head on a damp shoulder, nibbling at the salty flesh of his skin, willing him to take her, sure that the strength of his erection alone could part the fabric that covered her. She could feel the pulse of her orgasm aligning, the heavy pit in her stomach an abyss that needed to be filled. And, from the short, rapid breaths in her ear, the tension in every muscle beneath her fingers, Lydia knew he was as close as dammit too.
His hand moved from her, pulling impatiently at his bathers, the motion causing his knuckles to dig into the flesh of her inner thigh. The pain only intensified the experience, abandonment drenching her as she imagined him spilling his salty kiss inside her, visualised the decadence of Anton Santini making love to her…
Anton Santini!
The two words were a brutal slap to her flushed cheeks—a stab of self-preservation mercifully holding her back at the eleventh hour. The world suddenly came into sharp, unwelcome focus and she pulled back, struggled to catch her breath—appalled at what had taken place. She quivered with unsated desire as her mind fought for control and she stared at his questioning eyes.
This was work. This was her livelihood. But it wasn’t just that that had stopped her. It was the knowledge, the realisation, that a man as suave, as sophisticated, as merciless as Anton Santini could reduce her in a matter of minutes to this squirming ball of desire. If she lost her head she’d go under; he would crush her in the palm of his hand and barely even notice.
‘Lydia?’ he murmured, clearly confused by the change in her.
‘I have to pack…’ She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘I’ve got an appointment at the hairdresser…’
And he should have understood, should have been versed by Detective John Miller about the plan. But he just stared back at her. Lydia thought she understood his confusion—John would have told him that he wasn’t to be left alone!
Her mind raced for a solution and almost instantaneously found one. ‘We could go up to my room,’ she said, suddenly desperate to get away from the pool, to find out just what the hell was going on and—perhaps more importantly—face this man dressed!
But she stopped talking abruptly as she heard loud chattering in the corridor outside. Aware of the potential precariousness of the situation she moved quickly, putting herself between Anton and the doorway.
‘What are you doing?’ He sounded irritated, confused by the change in her, but there was no time for explanation as Maria and another woman appeared. Although Maria was still dressed in her white robe a towel was rolled up under her arm, and Lydia knew that she was now armed.
‘Signor Santini, che cosa fa qui?’
A large, irate woman Lydia could only assume was Angelina gesticulated wildly as she addressed her boss.
‘Sto nuotando!’ came Anton’s curt reply.
Lydia bobbed under the water and swam towards the edge, her hands gratefully reaching the silver of the rail, dragging herself up the steps. It was as if the marrow had seeped out of her bones, and her legs were weak as she pulled herself out of the water and located her robe.
‘I ask him what he is doing here so soon,’ Angelina’s exasperated voice greeted Lydia as she made her way over. ‘And he say swimming—I had no idea he was coming!’
‘Well, he’s here,’ Maria said, with a distinctly dry edge to her voice, frowning as she watched Lydia who, her fingers shaking, pale and wrinkled from her time in the water, was knotting her belt. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ Lydia said, hardly trusting herself to speak, still brutally shaken from her first encounter with Anton.
‘Go up and shower quickly,’ Maria said in low, urgent tones. ‘Then get over to the salon. I’ll cover him till you’re dressed and ready—we’ll get him upstairs and brief him.’
‘Brief him?’ Lydia blinked at Maria. Surely she had misheard? Or perhaps Maria didn’t know that Anton had already been versed in the situation? That had to be the case, Lydia begged mentally. Because otherwise…
Panic rose in her as she attempted to confront the other appalling possibility—that Anton Santini really hadn’t been briefed—that he had no idea who she was—that he had merely been attracted to her, had approached her, just as his bio suggested he would, with the supreme confidence that she would respond.
And she had!
‘Where are John and Graham?’ Lydia asked, trying to keep her voice even as Anton climbed out of the pool, her eyes darting away as she tried and failed not to notice the superb body that only moments ago had been pressed against hers.
‘On their way back from the airport,’ Maria answered, and Lydia’s last vestige of hope disappeared—Anton really had no idea who she was. ‘I rang them and told them what was happening.’
Cheeks flaming, she avoided even looking at him. Somehow she picked up her gym bag, and somehow she made her way out to the lifts, her heart hammering in her chest, only remembering to breathe when she was finally alone.
He would have made love to her if she’d let him, and—Lydia gulped as horrible truth flooded in—she almost had. She had almost let a virtual stranger in, let