CHAPTER SEVEN

      JAKE quickly slid the door-key into the slot just inside the room and the lights came on. Everything looked fine—classy, welcoming, and most important of all, providing a private oasis, not touching on Laura’s home environment nor his, completely separate to the lives they normally lived.

      It had to be this way.

      Bad enough that he was in the grip of uncontrollable desire for Alex Costarella’s daughter. Boundaries to this affair had to be set and kept. He couldn’t allow it to take over too much of his life. But right here and now he could satisfy his hunger for her, and to his immense relief she was up for it, no further delay to what they both wanted.

      She walked ahead of him, moving towards the window seat with the view on the far side of the room. He watched the provocative sway of her hips, felt the tightening in his groin, started unbuttoning his shirt, impatient for action. She set her handbag on the desk as she passed it. Jake tossed his shirt on the chair in front of it, took off his shoes, his gaze fastening on her turquoise high heels with their seductive ankle straps. She had great legs and the thought of having them wound around him brought his erection to full tilt.

      ‘Lots of city lights but it’s too dark to see the botanical gardens,’ she remarked.

      ‘Won’t be dark in the morning,’ he muttered, unzipping his trousers.

      She glanced back over her shoulder. ‘I think I like this view better,’ she said with sparkling interest, her eyes feasting on his bare chest and shoulders. ‘I’ve been wondering how you’d look naked.’

      He laughed, exhilarated by the honesty of her lust for him. He whipped off the rest of his clothes, dumping them on the chair with his shirt. ‘Hope you’re not disappointed,’ he said, grinning with confidence, knowing his physique invariably drew attention from women at the gym.

      ‘Not one bit,’ she answered emphatically, examining all his bits, which raised the already high level of Jake’s excitement.

      She lifted an arm and hooked the long tumbling fall of her black curls away from her neck, her other hand reaching for the top of the zipper at the back of her dress, obviously intent on removing her own clothes.

      ‘Let me,’ Jake said hastily, finding the bared nape of her neck incredibly erotic and wanting the pleasure of slowly uncovering the rest of her, visually feasting on her lush femininity.

      A few quick strides and he was taking over the task, opening up the snugly fitting bodice, exposing the satin-smooth, elegant slope of her back, which, delightfully, was uninterrupted by a bra. The line of her spine created an intriguing little valley that compelled his finger to stroke the lovely length of it. His touch raised a convulsive shiver of pleasure and he smiled, knowing her body was as taut with excitement as his own, every nerve alive with sensitivity.

      Eager to see more of her, he unzipped the top of the skirt and peeled it from her hips, letting it fall to the floor. The sight of a sexy black G-string encircling her small waist and bisecting a totally luscious bottom sucked the air from his lungs and blistered his mind with urgent desire. He barely stopped himself from moving forward and fitting himself to the tantalising cleft.

      Better to remove the last scrap of clothing first. He hooked his thumbs under the waistband and glided it over the soft mounds, down the long, lissom thighs and the taut curves of her calves, every millimetre raising the raging heat in his blood. The flimsy fabric caught on the straps of the erotic shoes. Couldn’t leave them on. The stiletto heels could do him a damage in the throes of passion and Jake was already envisaging a huge amount of fantastic activity in bed.

      ‘Sit down, Laura. Makes it easier to take your shoes off.’

      He was still crouched, ready to free her feet when she swivelled around and sat on the window seat. The eye-level view of her beautiful full breasts was a mind-blowing distraction. She leaned back so they tilted up at him, large rosy aureoles with peaked nipples shooting temptation. He stared, captivated for several moments before gaining his wits to lift his gaze to see if she was deliberately teasing him.

      Her thickly lashed blue eyes looked darker than before, simmering with an inviting sultriness. She wanted him enthralled by her fabulous femininity, wanted to drive him wild for her. Whether it was a deliberate exertion of her woman-power or not, it reminded Jake of who she was and how careful he had to be not to become ensnared by this woman.

      He fixed his attention on the shoes, forced his fingers to undo the ankle straps. In a few moments he could take all he wanted of her, revel in having it, and he would, all night long, but come the morning he had to be sane enough to walk away from her and keep her at a mental distance until the next time they were together.

      Shoes off.

      They were both completely naked now.

      He stood up, and the act of towering over her triggered his sense of man-power. He was in charge of this encounter. He’d brought her to this cave and he would control everything that happened between them. With a surge of adrenalin-pumped confidence he leaned over, gripped her waist and lifted her off the window-seat, whirling her straight over to the bed, laying her down, positioning himself beside her with one leg flung over hers, holding her captive so he could touch the rest of her at will.

      ‘Kiss me again,’ she commanded, her voice huskily inviting, her eyes glittering with the need for passion to blow them both away.

      ‘I will,’ he promised, but not her mouth, not yet.

      The rose-red nipples were pointed up at him, hard evidence of her arousal and he wanted her more aroused than he was. He closed his mouth around them, drawing on the distended flesh, sucking, his tongue swirling, lashing. She wrapped her hands around his head, fingers thrusting through his hair, dragging on his scalp, her body arching, aching for a more consuming possession.

      Not yet… Not yet…

      He swept a trail of hot kisses down over her stomach to the arrow of dark springy curls leading to the most intimate cleft between her thighs. He could smell the wonderfully heady scent of her desire for him as he dipped his mouth into the soft folds of her sex, intent on driving this centre of excitement to fever pitch. He exulted in tasting her hot wetness, exulted even more as she writhed to the rhythm of his stroking, crying out at the frantic tension building up inside her, jack knifing up to grab his shoulders and tug his body over hers.

      He was ready to oblige now, knowing her entire being was screaming for him and he was still in control, though bursting to unleash his own knife-edge desire. As he lifted himself up, her legs locked around him, her hips already rocking, and there was no more waiting. He surged into the slick passage to the edge of her womb and dropped his head to ravish her mouth, wanting total invasion, absolute domination of this intimate togetherness.

      Yet she met the attack of his kiss with an assault of her own, a fusion of heat that turned aggression into a melting pot of exploding sensations and he lost every vestige of control. Her legs goaded him into a series of fast thrusts, clamping around him at the point of deepest penetration as she moaned at the intense satisfaction of it, then rolling her hips around the hard heated fullness of him as he withdrew to plunge again, driven to hear and feel her pleasure in him over and over, wildly intoxicated by the sense of being drawn from peak to peak, each one raising the stakes to a higher level of fierce feeling.

      It was like riding a storm, hurtling towards the eye of it at breakneck velocity, their lives hanging on holding on to each other until they reached beyond the violent shattering that threatened every escalating moment and landed in a place where they could peacefully return to themselves again. Jake didn’t care how long that took…minutes, hours.

      It was a fantastic journey—her response to him, what he felt himself, a host of primal elements whipping them towards a final crescendo. The breakthrough