She sighed with relief when the doors opened, but relief was short-lived, soon replaced with the steady beat of her heart, racing faster as he slipped his key into the door and pushed it open.

„History, Mattie,‟ he murmured, standing aside to let her brush past him. „This is the present. For both of us, wouldn‟t you say…?‟

CHAPTER SIX

HE MADE such perfect sense. Two people, disillusioned from their past relationships, helplessly drawn towards each other, both knowing the undesirability of becoming too involved.

Once bitten, twice shy, Mattie thought now. She seemed to be thinking in proverbs.

From all accounts, she and Frankie should have made the ideal match. They had gone from childhood friends to childhood sweethearts. They should logically have ended up as blissfully happy adults with the statutory two children and pet dog. Instead, it had all unravelled like a ball of wool.

And Dominic hadn‟t needed to tell her what she had assumed for herself. That Rosalind had breathed the same privileged air that he did, and that, despite that, the relationship had collapsed under the weight of its own inadequacies.

So here they were now, not looking for anything beyond the present.

And heavens, how she wanted him, wanted him with every fibre in her body.

She refused his offer of a drink, met his eyes steadily and felt shaken but delirious at the molten heat of his gaze.

„No drink for Dutch courage?‟ he asked, moving towards her, then at last giving in to his need to touch her, but only delicately, only capturing her face between his big hands so that he could stroke the sides of her cheeks with his thumbs.

„I only need Dutch courage if I‟m about to do something I don‟t want to do,‟ Mattie said.

She placed the flat of her hands on his chest and then began to unbutton his shirt with trembling fingers. Each undone button gave her a glimpse of his hard, bronzed torso and the muscular strength of his shoulders.

„You‟d better stop that,‟ Dominic told her roughly, „or you might find that we don‟t make it to the bedroom.‟

He scooped her up and carried her towards one of the rooms, kicking open the door with his foot.

He made his way to his bed and deposited her gently, then proceeded to look at her for a few heart-stopping seconds, before switching on one of the lamps on the low chest of drawers that covered almost the length of one of the walls.

Then he returned to where he had been standing. That look. Mattie wanted to stretch like a cat and bask in the heat of it. She squirmed a little, sighed and then watched in fascination as he began undressing.

Anyone would think that she was a virgin witnessing her first glimpse of the male body in all its glory. Not that many were as glorious as his. If any at all.

He tugged off his shirt, exposing broad shoulders, a firm, hard stomach, flat brown nipples and then, as he slowly unbuckled his belt, Mattie‟s gaze drifted to where he was now unzipping his trousers and sliding them down over his lean hips.

„You do know,‟ he said with a low laugh, „that when I‟m done, it‟s going to be your turn…‟

„I may have worn tight outfits when I worked at the club, but performing a striptease is not my kind of thing.‟ Her mouth felt dry as she watched him slip his fingers beneath the elasticated waistband of his boxer shorts and then a smile of pure, wicked satisfaction curved her lips at the sight of his impressive manhood.

„Well, we‟ll have to work on that, won‟t we?‟ He bent over her and began undressing her, savouring every second of his gradual exposure of her body.

Her skin was as smooth as satin. First her shoulders, then the rest of her with only her lacy bra modestly covering her breasts. A clasp at the front and it was undone. Dominic pulled aside both halves of the bra and groaned as he saw the generous pale mounds spill out, saw the rosebud circles that he had imagined caressing.

Mattie lay perfectly still, watching him watching her, and felt a swell of desire so powerful that she half closed her eyes and sighed under the force of it.

She wanted him to touch her. Her breasts were positively aching to be touched.

Instead he finished what he had started doing, removing the rest of her clothing until she was completely naked.

„Happy?‟ he asked unevenly. He covered her body with his and just looked at her for a few moments. More than anything, he wanted her to be happy, to know that she was coming to him with every part of her soul open and willing, no doubts, no shadows.

„Happy,‟ Mattie agreed, in a similarly unsteady voice. She reached up to coil her hands behind his head, and brought him down to kiss her. The kiss seemed to go on forever, slow, tantalising. The exploratory, leisurely kiss of two people for whom time had finally stood still.

„I feel like a teenager,‟ she finally laughed breathlessly, and he smiled at her.

„We should have met when you were.‟

„Oh, at sixteen I was besotted with Frankie.‟ Mattie reached up to deliver a series of fluttery kisses on his mouth, moving her body sinuously beneath him and loving the feel of his hardness pressing against her.

„Because you hadn‟t yet met me.‟ He moved down, trailing his tongue against her collarbone and along the cleft between her breasts. Mattie held her breath, arched back and then released a long groan of utter pleasure as his mouth finally circled one nipple and he began sucking on it, tugging the tight bud into his mouth, grazing it with his tongue.

He captured her restless hands with his, splaying them out to either side while he continued to play with her breasts and tease them with his mouth. First one, then the other until her nipples were throbbing from the onslaught.

When she cried out, it seemed to be someone else‟s voice, coming from some other place.

This languorous seduction was like nothing she had ever experienced before. She knew that she was writhing beneath him, wanting more and wanting it now.

Although he was taking his time.

He had waited for this woman. Touching her, feeling her move, hearing her whimper for him—it felt as though he had been waiting for her all his life. He wasn‟t going to rush things now, even though if she so much as reached out and touched him he felt that he might have a struggle not to come. He was no long the master of lovemaking. The lovemaking was controlling him.

He released her hands and moved lower, feeling the taut flesh of her stomach with his mouth, then the indentation of her belly button, knowing that her body was responding instinctively now, her legs parting to accommodate his mouth.