Mistress Arrangements. Helen Bianchin

what seemed an age he stood in silence, watching the expressive play of emotions chase across her features, then he leant forward and brushed his lips against her cheek, trailing gently up to her temple before tracing slowly down to the edge of her mouth.

      It was an evocative caress, his lips gently tracing her own with such a heightened degree of sensitivity, it was almost more than she could bear.

      It would be so easy to allow him to continue, to follow a conflagrating path to total possession and its resultant euphoria. Except that it would only be a merging born out of sexual desire, not the meeting of two minds, two souls, the sharing of something so beautiful, so exquisite, that the senses coalesced and became one.

      She went still, lowering her hands slowly down to her side, and Stefano lifted his head slightly, viewing the soft mouth, the faint smudges beneath her shimmering eyes, and his expression became watchful, intent, as she sought to swallow the sudden lump that had risen in her throat.

      Carly wanted to cry out, yet no sound emerged, and she willed herself to breathe slowly, evenly, as he drew her down on to his bed and pulled her gently into the circle of his arms.

      His quietly voiced, ‘Sleep easy, cara,’ sent goose-bumps scudding in numerous directions to places they had no right to invade. She lay there, unable to make so much as a sound, and within minutes she became aware of the steady pattern of his breathing. Then slowly she began to relax, and gradually sheer emotional exhaustion provided a welcome escape into somnolence.