She’d seen the way he looked in his swim trunks that afternoon and she wanted to touch that broad chest. She wanted to explore his hard flesh, make him tremble with want. She wanted to draw this all out and enjoy every blasted second of it since she was facing a near future of celibacy.
Damien’s own hands were busy unzipping the back of her dress. But whereas she was fumbling, overeager, nervous, he was quiet, studied, intent. Goose bumps rose on her flesh as hisfingers trailed over her back. His room was at the end of the hall, remote, the sounds of the resort buffered by palm trees and flowering plants. The whirr of the ceiling fan and the uneven tempo of their breathing were the only sounds in the room.
All her doubts, all her concerns, fear about how she should behave and how he might react to her pregnancy, her body the way it was now, had all evaporated when Damien told her he hadn’t been with a woman in three years. She’d seen it then, what he had been telling her. That they both needed each other, just here, just now, to touch and taste and push on each other in uncomplicated pleasure.
She wanted that. She wanted him.
Buttons free, she spread his shirt and sighed as the palms of her hands caressed hard, warm muscle. “You have a lovely chest.”
His lip quirked up. “What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Mandy glanced down and saw that with the zipper undone, her dress had slipped a bit, only to come to a crashing halt at her cleavage. Nothing could get past her newly blossoming breasts, and her plump flesh was bursting out of the top of her strapless bra.
“This isn’t my natural state, you know,” she told him, pushing his shirtsleeves down to his wrists. “Every day I wake up to find they’re a bit bigger, like I’ve taken an air pump to them.”
Damien’s thumb ran over the swell above her bra. “I like the end result.”
“Yes, well, easy for you to say.” Mandy gripped his wrist as his thumb brushed lower and lower, skirting her nipple. She gave a sound of disappointment. “But at this rate, I fully expect one day to roll over and have them clap.”
He laughed, expression relaxed and amused. “I love your sense of humor.”
She was about to tell him that back in England, at The Wycombe Abbey School for Girls, she’d been quite the comedic thespian, but she only had time to open her mouth before he ripped her dress down to her waist, and she promptly forgot how to speak.
Or breathe, when his head descended to her chest and his tongue traced above the rim of her overburdened bra. Back and forth it went, as if it was on a leisurely stroll in the park, and Mandy shivered, appreciating fully how much more sensitive her breasts were now. Torn between wanting to just enjoy his teasing tongue and urging him to dispense with her bra and head south to her nipple, Mandy gripped his wrists and squeezed.
Damien lifted his head, and Mandy expected him to shove her dress down, strip himself, and slide right into her standing up.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
But she had expected Damien to be urgent, to take charge, to rush through to the release they were both seeking.
He was taking charge, yes, but he wasn’t interested in rushing. Which had its pros and cons.
As she tugged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor, Damien pulled the clip out of her hair. He stroked in it and smiled. “I love your hair. It’s just like you. Sort of free, with a mind of its own, but always in control.”
Was that the way he saw her? Mandy thought that was just a lovely way to describe her, even if she felt control was the last thing she possessed. Unable to resist touching him, she smoothed out his dark eyebrows, traced his cheeks, brushed along his lips in a caress that was too intimate, but felt so, so right here with Damien. His lips pressed in a kiss over her fingers and she smiled, knowing she felt as raw and vulnerable as he looked.
“If you think I’m in control, you’re a sandwich short of a picnic,” she whispered to him. “But thank you for that.”
He drew her fingertip into his mouth and sucked, sending a rush of heat through her body. Her nipples pushed painfully against her bra, and Mandy leaned closer to him, pulling his scent of night breeze, sand, and male muskiness into her nostrils.
“Of course you’re in control. You’re an awesome assistant.”
When she pulled her finger back, he followed it, until his mouth was brushing along her jaw. Mandy’s eyes fluttered closed. “Should that be my title? Awesome Assistant? I can post a sign on my cubicle.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, such a light teasing touch that she shivered. “How about Asshole’s Awesome Assistant? Or ASS for short?”
She laughed, their breath mingling together as his lips hovered above hers, his nose alongside hers, forehead brushing hers. “You’re not an asshole at all, but you’re a very funny man when you want to be. Though I refuse to allow you to call me ASS.”
“That didn’t quite land the way I meant it to,” he admitted. “It sounded more sexual in my head.”
She laughed lightly. “Then I will take it as such.”
If anyone would have told her two months ago that Damien was a man she could banter with, be relaxed and completely abandoned with, she would have laughed herself sick. And goodness knew, she hadn’t needed any more of that.
But it was all so easy, so right, so comfortable with Damien, that she was taking, but she was giving just as much. He made her feel sexy, she made him laugh, and they were both the better this night for it.
His answer was to stop the torturous teasing hover over her mouth and kiss her, a full open kiss that had her wrapping herarms around his neck to get closer. Mandy loved the way he kissed, as though he had nothing to lose, nothing to prove, like he just wanted her more than anything he’d tasted before.
