Modern Romance September Books 1-4. Julia James
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is the very best moment of my day, cara mia,’ Dante confided, undoing the clasp in her hair and tossing it aside before fanning out the tangle of her curls round her face.
The towel was gone and she hadn’t noticed it going, Belle registered in dismay as a lean hand travelled up over her ribcage to mould a pale, pouting breast, catching a straining pink nipple between thumb and finger to massage it in a way that sent little tremors down to her pelvis, ensuring that she became insanely conscious of the damp heat blooming there.
He used his tongue to tease her sensitive nipples and the little tremors picked up pace as he sucked on the swollen buds. Her hips shifted upward of their own volition and he flattened her to the mattress with the force of a sudden demanding kiss. Her hands went into his hair and locked there as he ground his hips into her, sending need rocketing up through her in a heady surge. Her body strained up to his and, by then, all her anxiety had fled because nothing had ever felt so necessary, so right or so good. Even the scent of him, dark and masculine laced with a spicy cologne that had already become familiar to her, was compelling.
He shimmied down the length of her, lean and lithe, parting her thighs, burying his mouth there with a fervour for that intimacy that shocked her. ‘You taste so good,’ he husked while she trembled all over with reaction, torn between wanting him to stop and wanting him to continue.
As exquisite sensation seduced her, she fought to stay in control, to stop panting for breath, to stop making little noises she couldn’t restrain and to still the urge to simply writhe. The pleasure was all-consuming, like a slow burn rising from the heart of her with his every spellbinding caress. Pulsating bands of tension tightened round the dull ache of need at the very heart of her, driving it higher until it peaked and set fireworks rocketing inside her, her whole body convulsing in physical delight.
‘If this hurts too much, I’ll stop,’ Dante swore, sliding over her, tipping her legs back. ‘Just tell me.’
‘OK,’ Belle mumbled, still semi-lost in the waves of bliss that had engulfed her as she felt his surge against her, hard and determined where she was soft and tender and yet, oh, so ready for him. There wasn’t a doubt in her head about what she was doing at that moment, not with everything feeling so new and fresh and Dante’s experience soothing her insecurities. His dark eyes were pure golden enticement as they held hers.
She skated her hands up and down over his smooth brown shoulders, enjoying the satiny strength of him while irresistible sensation snaked through her as he slowly entered her, stretching her sensitive body. She quivered as the heat of excitement clenched her again and then a stabbing pain hit, and she gasped and he stopped dead.
‘I’m hurting you.’
‘No, don’t stop!’ she exclaimed.
‘Then try to relax. The more you tense, the tougher the challenge is,’ he rasped.
Every nerve in her body still stirred to an edge of breathless excitement, she struggled to relax, and he moved again and it still hurt but this time she buried her face in his shoulder and bore the discomfort in silence. Mercifully, it was fleeting, and she heard his groan of satisfaction as he plunged deeper into her and somehow that lit her up as if she had a thousand-watt bulb burning somewhere inside her.
Her heart rate accelerated as the excitement conquered her again and shot higher with every plunge of his lean hips. A kind of wildness claimed her, and she wrapped her legs round him, urging him on as he pounded into her to finally assuage that insane ache of hungry need at the heart of her. She cried out as the ripples of another climax coursed through her and the wild, sizzling pleasure sent her spinning into release. Dante shuddered over her with a harsh groan of masculine satisfaction and the world went still for her then.
‘Unbelievable,’ Dante growled, rolling over and carrying her with him, golden eyes as bright as if flames burned there as he stared down at her. ‘That was unbelievable. Are you OK?’
Not feeling up to the challenge of speech or voicing an opinion, Belle nodded.
Dante gazed down at her and smoothed her hair with an unholy grin. ‘Your hair looks like I electrified it, amante mia.’
He had electrified her. Belle gave him a drowsy smile. ‘It’s called bed hair and it’s like that every morning when I wake up.’
‘I love your hair,’ Dante told her carelessly as he rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom.
‘Where do we go from here?’ Belle asked abruptly before she could think better of it.
Dante froze and suppressed a groan, knowing that he should have foreseen that question and should not have overlooked her inexperience. She wanted to know what came next when nobody got to know what came next, he reasoned in frustration. Even so, with him what came next after bedding a woman was usually predictable. He would get bored and move on and she would go home.
‘We go on as we have begun,’ Dante responded gruffly. ‘I’ll run you another bath.’
Belle was bewildered. We go on as we have begun. What was that supposed to mean? After all, they had begun as strangers agreeing to a platonic arrangement. Was he suggesting that they now return to that? And how was she supposed to ask him for further clarification? That would make her look a little desperate for reassurance and probably potentially clingy to a man already wary of clingy women. Furthermore, what was the protocol after such an encounter? Should she get up and return to her own room? If he expected that, he wouldn’t be running a bath for her, she told herself irritably and smothered a yawn, too sleepy and comfortable to want to move.
‘We have a problem,’ Dante informed her from the bathroom doorway, something in his voice, something spooked, cutting through her relaxation to make her take notice and push herself up on one elbow.
‘The condom tore,’ Dante completed grimly.
Belle pushed an uncertain hand through the tousled strands of red and copper spilling across her white brow, her violet eyes stricken, her freckles standing out in contrast to her pallor. ‘Tore?’ she repeated shakily.
‘It can happen,’ Dante breathed tautly, his strong bone structure taut below his bronzed skin. ‘But it’s never happened to me before. Possibly I was a little too passionate. Are you on any form of contraception?’
Belle went pink. ‘Why would I have been?’
Dante shrugged. ‘I had to ask. Sometimes women use birth control for other reasons,’ he pointed out without any expression at all, and then he turned on his heel and vanished back into the bathroom.
Belle was frozen where she sat and then, in an abrupt movement, she slid out of the bed, wincing at the ache between her thighs, her newly extreme awareness that she had had sex for the first time... And what a disastrous mistake that impulsive and seemingly daring decision was now starting to seem, she reflected wretchedly. It had not even occurred to her that she could use birth control simply to be prepared for such an event. But naturally she had never dreamt that she would end up just falling into bed with someone like Dante. She had assumed that she would be in a serious relationship before she had sex and that there would be time and space to consider such precautions. And why was that?
Because nobody knew better than Belle, who was illegitimate and the supposed result of a contraceptive accident, that chance pregnancies should be carefully guarded against and that even the possibility of a child should always be planned to the nth degree.
Belle’s father, Alastair Stevenson, hadn’t wanted her... For goodness’ sake, neither of her parents had wanted her! Alastair had had a brief affair with her mother and they had broken up by the time Tracy approached her former lover to tell him that she had conceived. Tracy had sworn that she was pregnant due to a contraceptive failure, but Belle’s father had made it painfully obvious to Belle, aged a mere thirteen at their only meeting, that he suspected her mother’s pregnancy had been no accident. And in all fairness to Alastair, Belle, knowing Tracy as she did, would have been suspicious too, because it was perfectly possible that, having