A frisson of nervous anticipation shivered through her. Maybe now was the time to tell him…
‘There is a zip,’ Ashley quipped, trying to hide the tremble in her voice as she turned to show him her back. ‘If that helps.’
Slowly, sinuously, he tugged the zip down the length of her spine, all the way to her tailbone. The crystal-encrusted folds of the gown fell away, revealing her bare back; the dress’s built-in bra had precluded her needing one of her own.
A soft gasp escaped her as Nico trailed one fingertip down the length of her spine before he slid the dress off her shoulders so it pooled about her waist. Ashley’s breath hitched audibly as she felt the cool air hit the bared skin of her back.
Nico slid his hand around to her front, cupping her breasts with his warm palms as he drew her back against him. She felt the hard ridge of his arousal against her back as he moved his hands from her breasts to her stomach and then lower still, so the dress pooled about her ankles and his fingers slipped beneath the scrap of her underwear.
A moan escaped her, and she arched her hips as his fingers slid even lower, probing the soft folds of her most feminine flesh. Arrows of pure, sizzling pleasure shot through her with each expert touch of his hand, and she pushed against him instinctively, seeking to give him even greater access, her eyes closed, and her head thrown back. No one had ever touched her body the way this man had. No one had ever made her feel the way he could, trembling on the brink of an even more overwhelming desire…
With a sound almost like a sob, she wrenched round to face him. ‘I… I want to see you,’ she admitted as she pulled his mouth to hers. ‘I want to see you when I touch you, and you touch me.’ She didn’t want this to be just about the pleasure, although there was so much of that spiralling through her to dizzying heights. She needed it to be something more, although what it could be, and how much, was something she didn’t dare let herself think about now.
And so she didn’t, drawing him closer for another open-mouthed kiss, pushing away any troubling thoughts as she surrendered to him once again.
Nico’s whole body throbbed with the force of his desire as Ashley moulded her soft, pliant body to his. Still kissing him, she scrabbled at his clothes, and he was in just as much a hurry as she was to rid himself of the cumbersome garments.
Unfortunately, removing a dress shirt took some time. He stepped away, managing a wry laugh, although he felt as if his whole body were on fire as he removed the shirt studs. ‘Not to ruin the mood,’ he managed, and she gave a shaky laugh as she brushed wisps of golden hair away from her eyes.
He hoped to high heaven that she wasn’t having second thoughts, because it would just about kill him to stop now, but of course he would do it. Yesterday morning he’d desired nothing but revenge on this woman. Now the last thing he wanted was to hurt her.
Finally, he was free of the shirt and cummerbund, and he shrugged out of them both, enjoying the way her eyes widened at the sight of his bare chest. She tentatively reached out one hand and placed her palm flat on his chest, fingers stretching as her hand registered the heavy thud of his heart. Even that simple touch was enough to inflame him. His breath hissed between his teeth and then he drew his hand down to clasp it with his own as he brought her to the bed.
They stretched out on the smooth satin, Ashley’s body pale and perfect, a scrap of silk the only thing covering her. She reached shyly for the button of his trousers. The feel of her fingers brushing against him nearly had him bucking in response. It had been a long time, a very long time, since he’d had this kind of reaction to a woman—and one that wasn’t just a matter of the physical, but something deeper. This felt like a pure form of communication that their words, so halting, scattered and pain-filled, had not been able to express.
With trembling fingers, she undid the button of his trousers and then slowly, exquisitely, drew down the zip. She pushed his trousers down and he kicked them off, grateful for the liberation.
For a second, they simply lay there, staring at each other, nearly naked, feeling totally bare. At least, Nico knew he did, and he suspected Ashley felt the same kind of vulnerability, his body open to her. Nico knew this wasn’t a simple matter of slaking his lust or even, as he’d shamefully considered yesterday, some sort of sweet revenge.
What it was, he wasn’t ready to think about. In that moment, he told himself it didn’t matter. He slowly reached out one hand and rested it on Ashley’s hip. She trailed her hand from his shoulder to his chest and then dipped lower, her fingers tentatively encircling him as he let out a groan of pure pleasure.
She laughed softly in response, and he captured her mouth in another deep kiss until neither of them was laughing, and it was all sweet, sated need, hands, lips and tangled limbs.
‘I have protection,’ he told her as he reached over to the bedside table. ‘If you…’
‘I’m not… I’m not on anything,’ she admitted, her face, flushed with pleasure, going even redder.
It was only a matter of seconds to slip on a condom, but it felt too long. Too long to be away from her arms, her soft surrender. Nico rolled on top of her, bracing himself on his forearms as she gazed up at him, her eyes wide with wonder, her lips swollen from his kisses, her face rosy. As he began to move inside her, she tensed, her body bucking a little, and shock reverberated through him.
‘You’re—’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly. ‘To me.’ She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as she pulled him deeper into her soft warmth, and Nico clenched his teeth against the onslaught of pleasure, determined to move slowly for her sake, even though everything in him was crying out to bury himself inside her.
She was a virgin. Why hadn’t she told him? Did it change anything? The questions swirled in his mind before they were obliterated by the deep ripples of pleasure obliterating them both. Ashley arched up as they found their rhythm, their bodies moving as one, fused from mouth to hip, every part of them locked, joined,united…
A shudder went through Ashley, and she cried out, finding her release before Nico surrendered to his own, burying his face in her neck as the aftershocks reverberated through them both.
He’d never felt so close, so connected, to another human being before. And he had no idea what it meant, what it could mean, for the future of the companies…or for themselves.
Chapter Thirteen
ASHLEY AWOKE TObright morning sunlight and an empty bed. She rolled over, surveying the expanse of smooth, empty sheet as a soft sigh escaped her.
What now?
Her body ached pleasantly in all sorts of places, and she was conscious of her own nakedness beneath the satin duvet. Last night, after they’d made love—although she knew she couldn’t really call it that—Nico had asked her why she hadn’t told him of her inexperience.
‘I don’t know,’ she’d admitted, ducking her head and hiding behind her hair. ‘I didn’t want it to complicate things. Or…be a disappointment.’
