But like the most delicate tidbit, he would savor her. Call him a masochist, but for five years the memory of this woman had left a burning imprint inside him. Now, to have the very scent of her filling his nostrils, the curve of her bare shoulder beneath his palm, the warmth of her body next to him, was driving him mad again with appreciation and anticipation.
For this woman, he would linger.
Halfway through the movie she kicked off her shoes…and the lingering was over.
“You know,” he murmured, his eyes resting on those beautiful toes. “I find your feet very sexy.”
Her head snapped away from watching the television. Red rushed into her cheeks. “Um…they’re only feet.”
“Not to me. Here. Put them up here on my lap. Let me look at them.”
A humorous gleam showed in her eyes. “You don’t have a foot fetish, do you?”
His mouth tilted in a sardonic grin. “No.” Her feet were just a starting point, gorgeous though they were. He would make love to every inch of her.
Starting with those feet.
“Lean back,” he said, lifting them onto his lap, forcing her into reclining back against the cushions. He began to slowly trace the pads of his fingers over her delicate toes. “These are very feminine.”
She expelled a surprisingly sultry laugh that rippled along his spine. “I would hope so.”
He held up one slender foot. “See this arch? It tells me you’re a sensual person.”
She moistened her lips. “Um…it does?”
“Now if I were to kiss the top of your foot—” he did as he said “—like this.”
“Damien…”
Her breathlessness turned him on, not to mention her dress had crept back along a length of slender thigh. “You don’t like that?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I do.”
He kissed her ankle. “Too much?”
There was a tiny pause. “Perhaps.”
“Not enough?”
All at once she tried to sit up. “The movie. We’re supposed to be—”
He grabbed the remote and flicked it off, bathing them in muted light from the dining area across the room. “I’d rather watch you,” he said, sliding to his knees on the plush carpet and helping her to stretch out before him on the sofa, just like that delectable meal she had prepared for him. “Lie there and enjoy it, Gabrielle.”
She licked her lower lip. “What are you going to do?”
“Make love to you with my mouth,” he said thickly, watching as her blue eyes caught instant fire. “Would you like that?”
“Er, maybe,” she whispered, making him smile at her slight rebellion. Even now, with her body crying out for his touch, she was determined to hold something of herself back.
And he would make sure she gave in.
Totally.
He took possession of those luscious lips, and a few heartbeats later he heard her sigh of sweet surrender that told him she’d only been fighting herself, not him.
And then he explored the smooth, velvet warmth inside her mouth that drew his tongue back time and time again over her moistness, marking her as his own, sending a vibration of arousal through him that made him suddenly wonder who was the one being possessed here.
He broke off the kiss and inhaled a deep shuddering breath. He wanted to consume her, to let his tongue glide her to a cli**x, over the hills and valleys of her body…the peaked n**ples, her flat stomach, the slight rise to her femininity. He only had to lift her in his arms, and he’d be able to place his lips anywhere he liked.
But first, he did what he promised to do and went back to her feet and lingered there, touching and stroking. Then he worked his way up one leg, inching up her dress, placing a kiss on the lacy blue triangle of material at the apex of her thighs before starting down the other leg.
Her floral dress had tiny buttons along the front of it, and he enjoyed undoing them and exposing her smooth skin by degrees. Until he got to the scar on the smooth skin of her stomach, and full-blown pain went right through him. He couldn’t stand to think of her hurt like this, her soft skin having been ripped apart by the metal of a machine driven by some nitwit who deserved to be ripped apart himself.
With my bare hands.
“Damien?” she said softly, but there was understanding in her tone.
Her voice pulled him back from the brink and he made a sound wrenched from deep inside and forced himself to move on. Otherwise she might think he was hesitating out of distaste. And he wasn’t. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“It’s okay,” he said in a brusque voice, then placed his lips against the scar, hearing her gasp as he kissed the puckered skin.
And then he continued up her silken belly to her round, firm br**sts that fit seamlessly in his hands. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears as he took first one swollen caramel nipple into his mouth, then the other, and sucked until she arched her back, raising her desire and in turn thickening the blood in his own veins.
“Damien,” she moaned, his name slipping through her lips, her hands gripping his shoulders, her fingers kneading him.
He lifted his head and looked down at Gabrielle’s glowing face. She was absolutely beautiful. Absolutely desirable. He knew it was time to taste the rest of her.
Inch by inch he moved back along the way he’d come, retracing his kisses, trailing his lips along to find the exotic scent of her that laced his blood with heat and something so primitive it belonged to just the two of them. Never had he wanted another woman as he wanted Gabrielle. Never would he take from another woman what he knew Gabrielle could give him…had always given him.
Herself.
He stripped the blue panties from her and lowered his mouth, loving the soft cry she gave as he began melting her with strokes of his tongue, eliciting a long moan from her. Small tremors started to ripple through her body, then strengthen. He kept on loving her, could feel her coming, shuddering beneath his mouth, her muscles tensing until she cried out with sheer release. He lapped her up in a flood of pleasure, urging her to even greater heights, to an even greater glory.
She held there.
Held longer than he expected.
He could wait no longer to be inside her. He needed to feel her muscles tightening around him. He needed to make her cli**x again but this time with him inside her.
He took a condom out of his pocket, ripped off his clothes and joined her on the sofa, entering her with one thrust, groaning into her mouth with the sheer enjoyment of having her slick flesh surround him.
And then a flame licked along his skin and he began to move, felt the tight clenching of her body that intensified with each plunge inside her. She pervaded his senses, clouded his mind and suddenly the world shimmied and he lost the ability to think. His body lost control.
And he lost his mind.
Seven
G abrielle opened her eyes the next morning and found Damien asleep next to her in bed. He lay on his stomach with his face half turned into the pillow. It made him look so sexy, so rawly masculine.
He murmured something and she stilled. She didn’t want to wake him. Not yet. Not when she could study him so freely. Not when she could take pleasure in every detail, noting the way his firm lips were relaxed, seeing the way his chin, too, seemed less arrogant.
Or maybe that was because he needed a shave, she mused as her gaze slowly lowered over the wide shoulders and trim waist, down to where the sheet hugged his h*ps and flanks, the urge to run her fingers along his spine so very tempting.
He made a sound that for anyone else would be a soft snore, but not for Damien Trent, and she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. If only she could tease him about this. But he was not the sort of man you could tease and get away with it.
But did she want to get away with it?
Perhaps not.
At the thought her pleasure faded. A feeling suddenly consolidated in her chest, everything becoming crystal-clear. Damien touched the deepest part of her and it frightened her, causing a wave of panic to riot through her veins. She turned away and buried her face against her pillow, wanting to hide from herself but unable to do so.
Dear God, she had fallen in love with the man who’d stolen her heart five years ago.
She had fallen in love with Damien Trent.
For the second time.
Just then the man she now knew she loved…the man beside her…started to move and wake up. She was tempted to jump up and run from the room, but she’d only be drawing attention to herself. If he came after her and started making love to her again, how would she react now she knew she loved him again? How would she manage to keep everything inside her until she had time to think this all over? Because suddenly the goal-posts had changed. And how that would affect her she wasn’t sure.
So she lay there with her back to him and kept her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, feeling him go up on one elbow and kiss her bare shoulder. She held back a moan, unable to turn toward him and end up in his arms again. She just prayed her didn’t draw her over to face him.
And then the mattress dipped slightly as he rolled out of bed, and she expelled a silent sigh of relief. She heard him walk into the bathroom and the shower came on and a few moments later she could hear the sound of water hitting nak*d flesh. She could almost see the water spraying off his wide shoulders, over his chest, down the arrow of hair. She shut her mind off. She had to or she might just be tempted to join him, and right now she dare not.
Instead of getting up for her own shower, she forced herself to stay in a sort of mental limbo until he’d finished dressing. Then, just when she thought he was about to leave the room and go get some breakfast, his lips touched hers in a brief kiss.
Her lashes flew open in alarm, but all he said was, “Sleep in. Come to the office when you’re ready.” He started for the door.
It took her a few seconds to register what he’d said. “What?” She sat up. “Where are you going?”
He stopped at the door and turned. “To the office.”
“Yours or—”
“Ours?” he joked.
She threw back the covers. “I’m not playing at this, Damien. I don’t want to be just a figurehead and leave you to do all the work.”
He looked surprised. “I don’t think that, but it wouldn’t hurt you to have a lie-in.”
She got out of bed. “I’m used to getting up early and going to work,” she reminded him, in case he’d forgotten she’d been a working woman down in Sydney.
His gaze slid over her short, silky cream nightgown and his eyes darkened, but he made no move toward her. “Okay, if you’re determined, then. I have an important meeting this morning so I have to go to my office first. I’ll meet you at Kane’s about eleven-thirty.”
“Fine,” she said, already heading for the shower.
An hour later Gabrielle asked her father’s personal assistant, Cheryl, to organize a meeting in the boardroom for eleven-thirty. She and Damien still had things to discuss from yesterday with the managers.
“It doesn’t take you long to start throwing your weight around,” Keiran sneered as he came into the office just as she was gathering her papers for the meeting.