STORY EXCERPT

Claire sipped her champagne, finished her glass while she watched Nerio open another, and this time he held his glass up. “Here’s to the most beautiful, clever lawyer I know.” Touching his glass to hers, he gave her the kind of smile that told her he meant it. Then he kissed her.

A brief touch of his lips to hers, that was all. He’d kissed her like that before, at the end of an evening, or in greeting, but this time he lingered a fraction of a second longer, and when he finished the kiss he stayed close to her, his breath hot on her lips. “Now, how about that dance?” he said.

She couldn’t think properly for a minute. She blinked. “I’d love to.”

He rose from the table and held out his hand to her, pulling her gently to her feet when she put her own hand in his. The action pulled her close, so she collided with his chest, and then had to lean back to regain her balance. He glanced down at her feet. “Nice shoes. I have no idea how you women move in them, much less dance. So let’s see you in action, hmm?”

She was glad to show him. He let her go first, so she swiveled her hips and gave him something to look at. Her reward was a low groan. “Woman, if you aren’t prepared for me to fall on you, don’t do that.”

Her only reply was a laugh. Once on the floor she turned, and his arms came around her. They swayed gently. “Is that why you suggested a dance now? Because they’re playing our song?”

Creases formed between his brows, then cleared. “Ah. No, but I like it.”

“Good, because I do, too.”

“I didn’t know you were a fan of Justin Timberlake.” He’d demonstrated a preference for classical music, not old pop.

He leaned closer, so his lips brushed her ear. “They’re talking my language.”

“It’s Spanish.”

“We Italians say Senorita, too. Didn’t you know that?”

She chuckled low in her throat. “You sound as American as the next guy.”

“When I’m in Italy, I’m as Italian as the next guy.” His breath washed over her ear, as intimately as if they were in bed together.

Claire fought not to shiver, and lost. With a noise that sounded more like a purr than a human sound, Nerio whisked her around, and moved his hips in a rumba action. Her little whimper made him laugh. Drawing away, he held her close, but an inch or two away from his body, enough so he could do it again and she could watch him. She hadn’t realized she’d licked her lips until she looked up into his face. A slow smile curled his full lips. He took his time, but he remained perfectly in sync with the music, without seeming to. Claire did her best, but her efforts didn’t match his.

“I don’t dance much,” she confessed.

“I only dance with women who are worth it,” he said. “Just move with the music, and I’ll do the rest.”

Worth it? Oh yeah. That sounded like an invitation worth taking up. Claire did her best, remembering her sessions at the gym. While it felt strange at first not to be wearing sweats and a T-shirt, she coped, and swayed. She hardly noticed when the DJ moved to another song, the same rhythm as before. Nerio kept with her. The floor only held half a dozen couples, and while one couple was busting the moves, the others, like Claire and Nerio, were concentrating on each other.

“You are getting good at this,” he said, and twirled her, catching her before she tumbled, his arms around her waist. His body pressed hard against hers, hot, his cock a rigid rod against her back, and then he spun her again, keeping hold of her hand, and brought her back to him, so her breasts collided with his chest. He held her there for a bare minute, his dark eyes blazing into hers, then moved her away.

“I didn’t even know you could dance.”

“I’m a panther. Of course I can dance.” He paused, just fractionally, and had to move a tiny bit faster to catch up.

Used to reading subliminal signals, Claire picked up the blink of uncertainty. He wanted to know if she was okay with his cat. Okay? She almost laughed, but she didn’t want to get serious on the dance floor. Her inhibitions were just starting to loosen. “Well, I’m at a disadvantage, then. I’m an ordinary, boring human and I want to get to know my inner panther.”

He threw back his head and laughed, but he didn’t miss a beat of the dance. “I can show you that, but we’ll have to take a good, hard look.”

“How hard?”

A lesser man would have showed her. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on hers. “As hard as you want. It might take more than once before we find her.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Claire opened her legs. “You were saying?” She felt powerful, enslaving this man, making him want her so much. The same way she wanted him.

With a sound like a man savoring a sweet treat, he licked her, swept his tongue down her pussy and lapped. With the flat of his tongue he tasted her, letting her juices spread over it, then curled the tip of his tongue and closed his mouth over it, tipping his head back to let her taste flow down his throat. He had claimed her with that sensuous motion.

He glanced up at her face, his own expression one of stark hunger. “I needed to taste you. I’ll do it properly later. You’re mine now, Claire.”

His claiming made her reach for him. She slid her hands up his arms as he prowled, his power rippling over her. Without checking his forward motion, Nerio tore off his boxers, not even looking, the violence shocking and thrilling at the same time.

With a short detour to collect a condom, he ripped it open with his teeth and rolled it on with one hand. His cock, heavy, thick and long, grazed her stomach before he guided it to her cunt.

“At last,” he said, as she shuddered in reaction. His hard flesh soothed her, excited her. He paused over her clit, pressing his cockhead over it, rubbing it so that Claire cried out and tightened her hold on him. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he slid down, excruciatingly slowly, and notched the tip of his cock in her cunt.

A wave of longing passed through her whole body. “Fuck me, Nerio. Do it now.”

“They are the most beautiful words I have ever heard in my whole fucking life,” he said, and did as she asked. If he hadn’t, she’d have begged him.

He drove in—and in, and in, until he nudged her cervix and passed into the deepest part of her. Claire kept her eyes open the whole time. She lifted her knees, then her feet, putting them firmly against the bed so she could lever her body up to meet him.

Perfectly still, buried inside her, Nerio met her gaze in the most intimate eye-to-eye contact she had ever experienced in her whole life. “You’re perfect,” she said. “You fill every part of my pussy, all of it.”

“Nothing’s perfect, but we can do our best to get there.” With a wicked grin, he began to thrust.

His first withdrawal and drive had her gasping, pressing her bare mound against him. His balls smacked against her perineum, that ultra-sensitive piece of flesh between her cunt and her anus, urging her up, like a rider pushing his mount to work harder. She gripped his shoulders, glad of the firm hold he provided, careless of whether she pierced his skin or not. The pressure on his shoulders made him grunt and go faster, harder.

“Let me watch you,” he said when her eyes flickered shut.

She snapped her eyes open and gazed at him. His jaw was tight, the tendons on his neck strained, as he worked inside her. He said nothing, only watched her, his gaze straying to the way her breasts quivered every time he slammed into her with a slap of flesh that grew wetter. He made his strokes the same, almost out, then straight back in, a great engine powering into her, taking her without mercy.

“If I said stop, would you?” she asked.

After squeezing his eyes shut, he opened them again, a frown creasing his brow. “Do you need me to?” He didn’t stop moving.

“No. But you said you could.”

“That was then. Don’t you fucking stop me.”

Claire couldn’t have if she’d wanted him to. He possessed her deliciously, taking her the way he wanted to, straightforward and powerful. With every thrust he drove her higher, harder, until her nerve-endings rioted, her body taking on only one purpose—to come.

How he did it she would never know but he kept her on the edge, nudging her over bit by bit, every stroke driving her closer to the precipice, until she was hanging by her fingernails. “Come with me,” she said.

“Give it up, Claire. Give it to me!”

With a scream, she came, her muscles tightening, her cunt clenching his cock rhythmically, as if it refused to let him go.

His harsh cry joined her yell as he came hard on the heels of her orgasm, his body spasming uncontrollably as he followed her down.