He bent to kiss each closed eyelid, moving her hands to his firm muscled back, groaning his pleasure at her caresses. He nibbled her ear-lobe, one hand inside the open neckline of the jacket she wore. She tensed as his hand travelled down to cup her breast, the nipple rising tautly to his touch. She made a half-hearted movement to stop him, but his hand remained adamantly in place, his fingers firmly clasping her soft smooth skin.
Kate felt herself lost in a wonderment of strange new feelings. She felt wonderfully relaxed in his arms, a complete freedom of inhibition, and yet there was also a searing sense of tension rising swiftly within her, feelings that threatened to overflow and explode when she wasn’t ready for them.
He slowly slid down her body, his lips raining fevered kisses wherever they touched, his fingers swiftly tackling the restrictive buttons to push aside the silky material and expose the taut flesh beneath. His eyes turned almost black in colour at the naked sight of her.
‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he groaned. ‘Like a marble sculpture—but with much more warmth.’ He cupped her naked breast, smoothing the soft firm flesh. ‘You’ll never know the effort it cost me not to take you a hundred times during the night,’ he told her huskily, kissing each breast hungrily. ‘A hundred, a thousand times!’ he moaned his torment.
‘Oh, Damien …’ she quivered her uncertainty. ‘I—’
‘No,’ he put a gentle hand over her mouth. ‘Don’t talk, honey. Just let go. Relax.’
She was already relaxed, too relaxed, her heated pleasure almost out of control. She had never known, never dreamt it could be like this, this complete surrender to the senses. If she had imagined love between two people at all she had thought of it as a coming together of two people who shared the same interests and gradually grew to love each other to the extent of wanting to give themselves to each other. But this wasn’t like that at all, and yet she couldn’t think of not giving herself to Damien, wanted to share with him the one thing she had given no other man.
Damien raised his dark head to look at her with glazed eyes. ‘You know I want you, Kate. You aren’t going to refuse me, are you?’
Silently she shook her head, already past the point of caring that Damien Savage, the man about to make love to her in the fullest sense of the word, was someone she had met for the first time yesterday, someone she had disliked until today, despised even. None of these things seemed important here and now, only the closeness of their two bodies and the sure touch of his hands were important to her at this moment.
‘Help me off with these.’ He leant on his elbow as she made an effort to release the single fastening to his trousers, glancing up as she winced. ‘What’s the matter?’ he looked concerned. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She was beginning to feel embarrassed at the intensity of his gaze on her nakedness, of the glazed look in his eyes. ‘It was your chin. It’s rough,’ she explained huskily.
‘Oh damn!’ He touched his chin impatiently, his eyes darkening as he looked down at her. ‘God, look what I’ve done to your skin!’ He touched one sensitive breast. ‘That must have hurt like hell.’ He soothed the hot reddened skin. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Kate wished he would shut up and kiss her. She didn’t want him to talk to her, it only reminded her of who he was and what he was doing to her. She looked away. ‘It didn’t hurt at the time.’
His smile gently mocked. ‘I guess I’d better have that shave after all.’ He got up from the bed. ‘Don’t move, I won’t be long.’ With a last lingering look at her he went into the adjoining bathroom.
Kate lay dazed by her own emotions. What was she doing here? More to the point, what was Damien doing in here with her? Already she had allowed him to spend the night in the same bed as herself—perhaps allowed wasn’t quite the right word to use, she had had little choice in the matter.
But she did have a choice about letting him make love to her! And she wasn’t going to wait here like a wanton. She might have been momentarily carried away by the mastery and expertise of the man, but not any more.
She had to get out of here before she disgraced herself completely. Anyway, he had said that virginity didn’t interest him, and she was certainly that. Her inexperience would soon bore a man of his reputation, and she didn’t intend just being another scalp added to the belt of any man.
She could hear Damien humming to himself in the bathroom as she hurriedly dressed herself, and the sound of his self-assurance only made her all the more determined to leave. She was no more to him than a diversion, someone to go to bed with during his stay in England. Well, he would find that here was one girl he wasn’t going to win so easily!
She slipped quietly out of the room, collecting her overnight case from the other bedroom on her way out. She sighed with relief as the lift doors closed behind her; at least she had managed to get out of the apartment without detection.
The man Damien had addressed as Barry the night before was sitting at the reception desk. He looked up and smiled at her. ‘Good morning,’ he said, standing up politely.
Kate blushed. There was no familiarity in the man’s voice and yet she knew she must look odd leaving the building at nine o’clock in the morning dressed in an evening gown. She could have gone to the other bedroom and put on her trouser
