and a long, slow kiss did nothing to calm it down, but slowly the turmoil of the sudden invasion by her family was fading.
His shirt was open again and beneath her hands were lovely flat nipples that she could not stop stroking, and her dress was open again and how she wished she had a front-opening bra, because she did not want to move her hands from his skin to get naked.
Steele peeled off her dress as she sat over him.
Till this point, till this evening, she had always felt that brief moment of judgment as she undressed. She felt only adoration now; she didn’t even try to define what was going on in her head as her dress slid off. She did not care what he thought, safe in the knowledge he thought only good things.
He did think only good things. More used to slenderness, he adored her generous curves and her ripe breasts spilling as he undid her bra, but more giddying and satisfying was the mutual eagerness, as if they had somehow known this was where they were leading.
‘I’ve got something I ought to tell you …’ Steele said, pulling back.
‘What?’ she breathed. ‘What do you have to tell me?’
He smiled at the dart of concern in her eyes.
‘I’m not sleeping with you till I hear about your name.’ His hand stroked one generous breast. ‘Tell me,’ Steele said.
‘No.’
He pulled her onto him and then flipped her onto her back and she lay looking up at him, aching for his kiss. She had already kicked off her ballet pumps. All she had on were her panties and it was he who looked down at her now.
‘I’m never going to tell you,’ Candy said.
He stood and picked up his shirt.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get dressed.
‘That’s bribery.’
‘Yep.’
Well, two could play at that game. ‘Fine,’ she said, half-heartedly sitting up, putting her legs over the bed and reaching for her clothes. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat …’
She picked up her bra and Steele took it from her hands.
He placed it beneath her breasts and did it up at the back and while he did so she could feel his breath on her shoulder and she was more than a little aware of his erection through his trousers. He took one of her breasts and gently stuffed it into the fabric but his hand stayed in there, stroking her, teasing her, and she sat still as his lips started to nuzzle the other one, licking and sucking at her nipple, stretching it with his lips as her hands moved to his head and urged him for more contact. But then he stopped. She looked down as he went to tuck her wet, very aroused breast back into her bra, and she decided he was cruel, so cruel that she knew if she didn’t relent they would be sitting eating a curry or watching a movie about half an hour from now.
‘Okay.’ Her voice was all husky and she didn’t really recognise it as hers. She cleared her throat, but it still sounded the same.
‘As you know, my parents are Italian,’ Candy said, and her head was on his shoulder as he unhooked her bra again.
‘Okay.’
‘Strict,’ she said. His hands were now on her hips and she lifted her bottom to allow for him to take her panties down.
‘Go on,’ Steele said, which was contrary to his words because he was kneeling with his mouth on hers as she spoke.
‘And they chose the most beautiful name that means pure and innocent …’ she said, and she felt the stretch of his lips on hers as he smiled as she told him what she had sworn she wouldn’t. ‘And then when I hit my teenage years I noticed that people started to snicker and …’
‘What is it?’ Steele asked.
‘What’s the medical term for thrush?’
He pulled back and smiled. ‘Candida.’
‘Which is why I became Candy. Sadly, not to my parents. They still insist on calling me by my full name.’
‘Were you teased?’ he said to her mouth as his hand parted her thighs and his fingers slipped inside her.
Mercilessly.
‘Poor baby …’ Steele said.
‘Oh …’ Candy moaned, her thighs quivering.
He felt her thighs clamp around his hand and her head rest on his shoulder and there was that blissful choice whether to feel her come now or dive in for the pleasure.
Greed won.
He removed his hand and she let out a small sob of frustration combined with bliss as he stood and she sat naked, a breath away from him as he slid down his zipper and undressed. He handed her a condom and she shook her head.
‘You do it.’
‘You.’
Okay, she was bad at this part, except his erection was at her cheeks and she was licking her lips as she undid the foil. She had never seen something so lovely, so fierce, so tempting, and the quicker she did this and the quicker she came were very good incentives to get it on.
She played for a moment, loving the feel of him naked in her hands, teasing him with hot breaths to the head, cupping him in her hand.
‘Candy.’
His voice was deeper, if at all possible, impatient and deliciously stern, and she would have loved to find out what might happen if she teased him further, dragged this out a little longer. Instead, she briefly looked up at chocolate-brown eyes that made her feel as sexy as hell.
‘Put it on,’ he said.
She did as she was told, unravelling it along his lovely thick length and deliberately taking her time, loving the sound of his sharp breathing and then the impatient way he pushed her hands away when the job was done.
He pushed her shoulder lightly and it was like dominoes falling, because she toppled back on the bed and he lifted her legs abruptly for daring to keep him waiting. She was compliant, wonderfully so. Talk about boys to men, Candy thought as he seared inside her and then she wrapped her legs around him. It was like comparing apples to oranges. He knew exactly what to do as he moved deep inside her. His erection was so strong and fierce that each thrust took her to a place she had never been before.
‘I’m going to come,’ she said almost in apology, watching, feeling, arching to the bliss of him searing inside.
‘I think that’s the point,’ he said, trying to hold on, revelling in the tight grip of her muscles and the tension of her as she came. It was so deep, so heavy, so intense that Candy briefly wondered if she’d even had an orgasm before.
He kept making love to her through it. She wanted to catch her breath, but then she didn’t, for she loved the feel of him taking her as she came. Then she lost her head a little, stopped thinking about anything other than a very small bedroom and a whole lot of pleasure. Steele was looking down at her and then he stilled and she sobbed in pleasure as he started thrusting faster and released into her. To not come again would have proved impossible, to feel his tension release, to see this beautiful man above her and feel him come deep inside shot her into orbit again, her hand pushing at his chest, at the delicious hurt of a sensitive orgasm.
No regrets, never, she swore as, still inside, he collapsed onto her and they breathed their way back to consciousness.
He lay there, inhaling the scent of her hair, feeling her legs loosen and lower to the floor, and he knew this was different. Never had he been more perfectly matched in the bedroom. Her inexperience counted more than she knew for she melded to him, moulded to him. It was all he could do not to gather her things and carry her home.
And then normal service returned to his brain and he kissed her instead of saying the thoughts in his mind.
They