Modern Romance September Books 1-4. Julia James
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in a towel and clutching a bundle of clothing to her breasts. She looked so guilty and so embarrassed, it was comical.
‘What on earth are you doing in here?’ Dante intoned in wonderment, trying very hard not to laugh.
Belle hopped off one bare foot onto the other. ‘Your room has a bath... Mine doesn’t. I didn’t think you’d mind if you weren’t here...but I didn’t get around to cleaning up, I’m afraid, because I wanted to be out of here before you caught me.’
‘And look how well that turned out,’ Dante commented.
‘I’ll come straight back and clean up once I’ve got dressed,’ she told him apologetically, her face on fire. ‘I swear I wasn’t snooping or anything. That’s probably what you think but I didn’t touch or look at anything in here. I just missed having baths and I was tempted.’
As Dante was tempted, appraising her curvy little body in the towel, noting how the tight hold she had on the clothing merely accentuated the magnificent swell of her breasts over the towel. Pale, lightly speckled flesh that he had already touched and tasted, and which had only ignited his hunger for more of the experience. Her hair was piled up in a glorious curly mass, innumerable little tendrils escaping to accentuate the flushed oval of her face, dominated by huge violet eyes and that glorious mouth. It was every fantasy Dante had ever had of her rolled into one and he went instantly hard. She was also the distraction he badly needed after the evening he had endured.
‘You look amazing,’ he told her gruffly because she did, all bright and flushed and embarrassed in her bare feet but somehow, for all her diminutive size, extraordinarily vibrant, full of life and sass.
‘I hardly think so... You’re a guy, it’s probably just the bath towel,’ she deflected tautly, because she was painfully aware that she wanted him to mean what he had said.
‘No, it’s you...all you,’ Dante husked, logic kicking in to demolish his reservations and neatly shift him to where he wanted to be. As they had both acknowledged, it wasn’t a normal job that he had given her, and it would also be an extremely temporary one. ‘Forget the rules about what you should and shouldn’t do, ditch the lists and the expectations. Just be with me because you want to be.’
Belle was rigid with tension and then a little quiver ran through her, her breathing quickening. She hadn’t expected him to be that bold, hadn’t been prepared for him to strip everything back to the basics.
‘Live a little.’ Dante leant back against the door to close it before crossing the room to gently pull the bundle of clothing out of her too-tight hold and drop it to the floor.
‘But I’m working for you,’ she began urgently as she clutched at the precarious towel to ensure that it didn’t fall.
‘Any court in Europe would deny that our private arrangement has anything in common with a normal job, which is why we shouldn’t feel bound by stupid rules,’ he argued impatiently. ‘Those rules don’t apply to our situation and we don’t need to consider them.’
Live a little, he had said, and he could not know how deeply those words affected her because Belle was unhappily conscious that she had barely lived at all during her twenty-two years on earth. She had missed out on the supposedly fun-filled years of teenaged experimentation and had felt old before her time dealing with major responsibilities like terminal illness, household bills on a small budget and bereavement. With elderly grandparents, she had always had to be sensible and there had been an awful lot of rules to follow. Rules she was still faithfully following, she acknowledged ruefully.
‘I know I’m not that guy on your shopping list whom you would choose,’ Dante murmured. ‘But right now, I’m the one that you want...’
And the mad cacophony of warning voices in her head telling her to back away, go to her own bed and sensibly turn her back on the risk he presented, suddenly went silent. Yes, he was the one she wanted, the only one she had ever wanted, and all of a sudden holding out for that one perfect match of a guy who might never come along seemed spineless and sad. Dante had smashed through her defences because the bottom line was undisputable... I’m the one that you want.
‘That’s true,’ she framed shakily.
‘And it is equally true that I want you,’ Dante breathed, bending down to lift her up and settle her down on the bed. ‘Let’s not make it more complicated than that.’
BUT IT WAS much more complicated than that, Belle thought helplessly as she watched Dante tugging loose his tie, shrugging free of his jacket. Where did they go from here? Was this a one-night stand, as it was called? Would they move on and act as if it had never happened for the duration of their time together? Would one act of sex kill the attraction between them? How was she supposed to know?
She was lying in a damp towel on a bed and common sense was telling her to throw it off, but she didn’t feel brave enough for that. Although she had been half-naked in his arms the night before, that had been different, and her lack of self-consciousness had been entirely due to the heat of the moment when no thought had been required from her and no single sensible thought had occurred to her. No, Belle was very much aware that such thoughts came afterwards, and nervous tension held her fast with Dante providing a very welcome distraction as he stripped.
He was very fit, she conceded numbly, sentenced to silence by awe and shyness as rippling bands of muscle sheathed in bronzed skin began to appear. He shed his shirt, toed off his shoes, peeled off socks, his sleek muscular development on continual display as he flexed and turned and straightened, his trousers hanging low on his lean hips, an intriguing ribbon of dark hair snaking down his flat stomach and disappearing beneath the waistband. He was beautiful, like some flawless fantasy brought to life in the flesh, she reflected, shutting her eyes circumspectly as the trousers slid down. She had felt his arousal, noticed, but she wasn’t going to stare while he was watching her like a hawk. Those clever dark golden eyes didn’t miss a trick and she didn’t want to embarrass herself and be guilty of doing that blushing-virgin thing that he had already mocked.
* * *
‘You’re as quiet as a mouse,’ Dante whispered, tugging gently at the edge of the towel as she held on to it. He was as aroused as hell and fighting to stay in control.
‘There’s too many lights on in here,’ she told him, violet eyes flying wide.
Without a word, Dante reached up and dimmed the lights to a more acceptable level. ‘Better?’
Belle nodded jerkily. Now that he was actually on the bed, naked and ready to proceed, nerves were swallowing her alive.
‘I want you to be sure about this,’ Dante breathed abruptly. ‘I don’t want you sharing this bed with me if you’re going to regret it. I don’t want to take advantage of you.’
‘I know you don’t...’ Involuntarily, Belle lifted her hand to his lean, darkly handsome face and ran soothing fingers across his brow, where he was frowning, her fingertips skating up into his silky black hair, smoothing down the tousled strands.
It was the warmth she emanated, Dante recognised in consternation. That was what had made him spill his guts the night before, that seemingly natural warmth and affection that had broken through his habitual reserve. That discovery about her and about himself, that he could actually be that impressionable, that easily influenced by a woman, unnerved him. Yet, in defiance of all the defensive instincts that urged him to back off and steer clear of such manipulation until he could get a better handle on it, he still leant down and kissed her as though his life depended on it.
From zero to ninety in seconds, she thrummed into life like a well-primed engine, Belle thought dizzily as he ravaged her parted lips with the kind of hunger that set her on fire. A jolt of high-voltage electricity shot through her, ensuring she was aware of every inch