‘You mean you usually just act on your natural instincts—I like that in a woman.’ His approving look was transferred to his food as he savoured it with all his senses. ‘Mmm…this is good. Here. Try a taste.’ He held out a piece of glazed carrot on his fork and Regan automatically leaned forward to take it in her mouth.
‘Good?’ he asked, tempting her with another offering, this time of succulently crisp green pepper.
The sticky sauce was sweet, yet tart, and hotly spicy on the tongue. ‘Scrumptious,’ she admitted, her eyes half closing with bliss as he trailed the tines of his fork from her moisture-glossed lower lip. The gentle scraping against the soft pad of flesh sent a little shiver down her spine.
‘Are you sure you won’t have some?’
‘Well…maybe a little.’ She yielded to his culinary seduction, deciding that tonight no temptation was worth resisting.
As they ate Adam kept the conversation to light, entertaining subjects that rarely threatened to get too personal, but the look in his eyes was extremely personal and with every bite Regan was made more aware of the fact that he was a man and she was a woman—and that he had her panties in his pocket. Her daring tease had had the desired effect, and Adam was making no secret of his gently simmering arousal. He watched her mouth as she ate and her eyes as she sipped at her champagne; he watched the way her small hands balanced the solid silver cutlery and how her throat rippled when she swallowed; he seemed to find special fascination in the delicate skin that stretched across her collarbone and the movement of her breasts against her dress as she gestured and spoke.
Unused to being the focus of such concentrated masculine attention, Regan found herself increasingly responsive to the charged atmosphere created by his cool wit and hot, knowing looks. Just looking at him was like plugging directly into an electrical circuit—her whole body hummed with a pleasurable buzz of nervous anticipation. She noticed the easy flexibility in his strong wrists as his scarred hands tipped the heavy champagne bottle, the sexy lines that amusement carved in his taut cheeks and the muscle that jumped in his jaw when he mentally withdrew to brood on some private thought.
She was so caught up in her heightened self-awareness that when Adam finally pressed his napkin against his mouth all she could think of was how it would feel if he pressed her to those firm lips…
She found out when he suddenly threw the rumpled napkin down on his empty plate and with a rough sound of impatience reached over to jerk her out of her chair, tumbling her across his lap.
‘And now you can make good on that promise,’ he growled, supporting her slender back with one powerful arm as his other hand cupped her squirming hip, forcing her soft bottom against the bunched muscles of his thighs.
Her startled cry of alarm had made her breathless. ‘What promise?’ she gasped, her head falling back against his shoulder as she recognised she was helpless against his strength, even had she wanted to struggle…
‘This one,’ he rasped, silking his hand up under her dress, over the tops of her stockings, to stroke the satiny skin of her inner thighs, his fingertips drifting so close to the core of her feminine heat that she felt the fierce electrical jolt of his imaginary penetration.
Regan instinctively snapped her legs together, her squeak of shock smothered by his mouth coming hard down on hers, plundering her senses with a ruthless expertise that left her weak and panting.
He kissed her until she thought that her head was going to explode and her heart accelerate out of her chest. This was no coy flirtation—his forceful kisses were in brazen earnest. And after a slightly clumsy start Regan abandoned herself to his miraculous passion, splinters of delight cascading through her senses. His tongue slid in and out of her mouth, deftly stroking her in ways that made her twist feverishly in his lap, seeking even more intimate contact, sliding her arms around his neck and running her fingers up the back of his scalp to sift through his luxuriant dark hair, tugging at it in her eagerness to experience everything he had to offer.
But it still wasn’t enough—he was too controlled and she needed more, much more—so she leaned hungrily into his devouring kisses, using her teeth and tongue to encourage him to stop holding back, to be rougher, more reckless…
He refused to co-operate, and she ran a hand down the side of his face, over his gritty jaw and down his flawed throat to his open collar, where she ripped blindly at the buttons to gain access to that tantalising strip of hair-roughened chest. Under the dark mat of hair his skin felt smooth and hot to her fingertips, and she curled her nails into the resilient wall of flesh, revelling in the way his muscles bunched and rippled at the warning prick of five tiny daggers.
He grunted, his knuckles digging into her soft flesh as he flexed the hand trapped between her clenched thighs, forcing it gradually higher until his thumb brushed against the soft nest of hair protecting her femininity.
He broke the kiss and her head fell back against his shoulder. He bit at her exposed throat and then suckled at the glowing red marks. ‘You’re so incredibly hot for me,’ he rasped as her sultry need irradiated the torrid, enclosed space between her thighs, misting the tip of his thumb. ‘So ready for me…’
Had there been an odd note of surprise in his gloating words? ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’ she managed threadily.
‘What I want from a woman and what I get are not always the same thing,’ he murmured, moving his thumb the infinitesimal distance to final contact and watching her violet eyes bloom with colour so vibrant and intense that it was beyond the palette of any artist. ‘But you may be unique in that respect. You’re not going to have to fake a thing with me, are you, Eve?’ This time his purring voice was purely triumphant.
‘You’re hot for me, too,’ she countered, flattening her hand over his steamy chest.
He bent and licked her mouth. ‘Hot and hard,’ he conceded in an inflammatory whisper, moving his hips so that she felt the explicit truth of his words rubbing against her bottom.
He continued to kiss her with the same, slow, teasing rhythm with which he controlled the delicate movements of his thumb. Only when he felt her quivering thighs relax and her hips begin to lift towards his tantalising touch did he withdraw his hand to cup her breast, his fingers finding and moulding the stiff nipple through the fine fabric, drawing it out to an exquisite peak of sensitivity.
‘Adam…’ Regan’s protest was a soft moan as she squeezed her thighs together, trying to ease the burning ache created by the loss of his vital touch at the core of her femininity.
‘Eve…’ He said something else that she didn’t hear over the thunderous roar of her blood, and when his arms braced, gently yet inexorably easing her away from his body, a brief battle ensued that left him smouldering with sensual amusement.
‘I said…I think it’s time we adjourned to the bedroom while we can both still walk,’ Adam said, his hands firm on her narrow waist as he rose with her struggling figure and set her squarely on her feet. ‘I’d prefer to finish this in the luxury and comfort of a well-sprung bed…wouldn’t you?’
His smile was mildly taunting, as if he sensed how close she had been to ravishing him right there in his chair.
Finish this? What if she didn’t want to finish it? What if she never wanted to relinquish this glorious feeling of voluptuous well-being?
‘Shall we…?’ He turned her gently in the direction of the bedroom and invited her company with a spurring little pat on the bottom that ended in a lingering caress.
In spite of her turmoil Regan remembered to snatch up her beaded bag as they passed the couch, hugging it to her fast-beating heart as she walked down the wide hall and into the big bedroom which she had found so intimidating. Someone had already been in to turn on the recessed lights and fold back the corner of the dark bedcover to display an inviting expanse of lustrous black silk. Pierre, setting up the final scene for seduction, thought Regan as she noticed how some of the lights were angled to pool on the bed, making it appear to