CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

HESLIDESHIS palm up to hold me by the side of my neck, tilting my head back so my mouth is in place to meet his.

‘You realise it's my turn to be in charge.' His eyes glitter.

He's hoarse and he's flushed and his muscles jump beneath my fingertips. He pulls my hands off him and presses them to my breasts.

‘Play with yourself while I feast.'

My jaw drops. He grunts a laugh and kisses me. His hands cover mine, pushing my fingers to pinch my tight nipples. I'm already hot from having him at my mercy only minutes ago. From feeling him pump into my mouth. But now I'm his plaything and I obey.

‘Good girl.'

I gasp as that edge of arousal sharpens.

He tugs my bikini bottoms. I quickly wriggle to help him. I'm so eager I ought to be embarrassed but he just praises me again and I liquefy on the counter before him. He drags his hot open mouth down my body—from plundering my mouth, to suck my neck and down my sternum—a direct line down my centre until he hits that sensitive part of me. He's not merciful. He's avaricious. He wants all of me—my absolute surrender. He laughs as I writhe, desperate for the release he withholds from me. His fingers flicker and invade, filling the aching void inside me while his tongue teases—rewarding me.

The convulsions overwhelm me almost instantly—wave after wave of an exquisitely intense orgasm that goes on for a mind-blowingly long time. I try to slow my breath. It doesn't work.

‘You don't think you're done, do you?' He teases a finger up the inside of my thigh.

My mouth feels tender but I manage to smile at him. He sweeps my mussed-up hair from my face and smiles back. He's the sexiest thing I've ever seen.

He's hard again and just like that I'm ready again too. He pulls me so I'm on the edge of the counter and presses close. I cry out with guttural completion as he fills me. His powerful thrusts almost shunt me away from him. He grunts and tightens his arm around my waist to hold me closer and closer as he rams more deeply inside me. I curl my legs around his hips to help—to lock him to me. It's hot and fast and we're both slick so we clutch each other even harder and it's like nothing ever. I'm barely on the counter, he's taking almost all my weight and its so, so good that in the end all I can do is scream in supreme satisfaction.

It takes an age for me to blink my way back to reality. I turn my head to rest it on his sweat-slicked shoulder and that's when I see the tripod. And the little red light. Flashing.

‘Oh!' I gasp. ‘Oh, no!'

‘What's wrong?' He eases away enough to look into my face.

I push him further so there's enough space that I can slip down from the counter. ‘I'm still filming,' I mutter.

‘What?' His eyes widen. ‘You're what?'

‘The cameras. They're on.'

He freezes. ‘Notlive streaming?'

Panic washes over me as I double-check. ‘No.' Relief is instant. ‘No.' I stop the recording and release a shaky breath. ‘Just recording.'

But that's bad enough. I flush from the top of my scalp to the tips of my toes. The things these cameras have just seen? Dain will be horrified.

But his mouth twitches as he watches me press my hands to my hot forehead. ‘Have we inadvertently made our own movie?' He cocks his head. ‘You should see your face right now...'

Yep, I bet. I'm an enormous beetroot.

Both cameras were filming as I worked on my latte art and then I saw him and just got distracted and all that time when we were on the bench doing...very adult things...there was a camera filming. Two cameras, in fact.

He catches my eye and to my amazement that twitch at the corner of his mouth becomes a full-blown grin and next minute we're both helplessly giggling like absolute fools to the point where I have to wipe tears from my eyes.

I guess it's the endorphin release—the lingering pleasure of those moments, followed by total panic and then sheer relief that the world hasn't just been privy to them.

Dain disappears into the other room and reappears in a robe, holding another that he wraps me in.

‘We have to delete them...' I mutter apologetically as he fastens the waist belt of my robe for me. But I'm engulfed by a wave of heat as I recall just what's been captured on film. ‘We should do that right away,' I add, stupidly flustered.

‘Sure,' he says easily, but there's a devilish glint in his eyes as he studies my face up close. ‘If that's what you want...'

‘It is. Absolutely. That footage can't survive,' I immediately respond and then look at him. ‘Don't you think?'

Of course he does. He's all about privacy and having as little online as possible. This would be a nightmare for him, right?

But he just raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Don't you think we should watch it first?'

I gape at him and suddenly I'm awash with a hot flush even worse than before.

But he's flushed too, and he crowds me even though he's wrapped me in the soft silk robe already. ‘You can see for yourself how beautiful you are when you lose total control.'

Oh. My.

‘Dain...' I'm so flustered I can hardly say his name.

He chuckles. ‘You don't think it would be fun?'

My heart races. Curiosity has me. As does the amusement in his eyes. He can be ridiculously fun. He reads my expression and his own lights up.

‘I'll get the popcorn.' He turns to the nearest cupboard.

He makes me giggle again. I feel reckless and wanton and naughty and it is so liberating. He grabs the cameras in one hand and takes my hand in the other and leads me into the large comfortable lounge that overlooks that deep blue pool.

I had no idea who Dain Anzelotti was, that night in the gondola. The lifestyle he lives is so foreign to anything I've ever experienced. Things that he doesn't even notice take my breath away. The private jet. The people quietly attending to his every need. The fine silk perfectly tailored to skim a body sustained by meals whipped up by an award-winning private chef. But none of that is relevant right now. It's just him and me—teasing each other, being free with each other.

It's only because of one passionate whim, a wisp of recklessness in one moment, that we're together again. I know these are a fantasy few days and they're not for ever.

He splits the enormous smart screen hanging on the wall so the footage from both cameras plays simultaneously side by side. There's a bird's-eye angle from above us and a side-profile angle. He fiddles so we get the sound from only one of the cameras and it plays low on the speaker. There is music playing but I can still hear our conversation.

Dain takes a seat right behind me on the rug—encircling me. Neither of us eat the popcorn. I stare at the screen—riveted—half appalled. In the next moment I'm fully aroused. It was steamy at the time, now it's just smoking hot and I'm toast.

There's his dance. There's me dropping to my knees and—

This time I can see his face, not just feel his reaction. I can see the size of him, the strain of his body—arching towards my touch. The way he looks at me as I pleasure him turns me to goo. I can't sit still as I watch him then lift and spread me on that counter. Hearing his words—what he's going to do to me—then seeing him do it to me is as hot as the moment it actually happened. Which honestly ought to be impossible.

‘What do you think?' His breath stirs my hair.

I can't look away from the screen but from behind he loosens my robe and touches me. He begins with my breasts but then one hand glides lower. I moan as I realise how wet I am in this instant but he tells me how good it is. How good I am. That he's turned on too and he can't wait to taste me again. And then I'm wetter still. And that just makes him double his words of approval because it means I'm ready to take him again and he really needs me to be ready—

‘See?' He nips the side of my neck tenderly as he lifts me onto his lap and gives me everything I want in a slow, searing slide. ‘You're so beautiful when you let me indulge you.'

I quiver in a mini release right away, because he's so big and so hard and it's just what I want. He groans as I take him to the hilt.

The action on the screen is fast and energetic, but his possession of me now is lush and lazy and total. He teases me intimately, so lightly with the tips of his fingers, so I grind on him harder, clenching within to lock him inside. He swears in earthy, guttural delight. I'm just utterly incoherent. Again. I don't watch the climax on screen, I'm too busy having another.

It's quite some time before I can speak again. He's stretched out on the rug and taken me down with him and is holding me close. I've never experienced physical intimacy or pleasure like this. He's playful and inventive and every time I'm left a shaking mess. It doesn't get easier. It doesn't lessen in intensity. It's always unbearably exciting. And I can't get enough.

As if he knows how raw I feel he caresses my back with long, light, tender strokes that slowly soothe my oversensitive soul. ‘Still want to delete it?'

I lift my head just enough to see his face. He's flushed and handsome and like a pirate.

‘I...'

Can't think when he smiles at me like that.

His smile is the most powerful weapon I've ever encountered. All I can do is smile back. ‘I can't believe we did any of that.'

‘Yeah.' He strokes my cheek. ‘Shall we go back to the house—?'

‘And see Lukas.' I finish his thought.

He smiles even more. Then he unplugs the cameras from the screen and puts them in my hand. He curls my trembling fingers around them so I don't drop them because I'm still so weak I'm butterfingered. ‘You should keep the recording to remember. Or replay again some time. It's yours. Always. You decide what to do with it,' he says. ‘I trust you.'

I can't believe he's given me this thing that is unbelievably personal. This is a man who loathes anything private being played out in public. A man who does the almost impossible to ensure any digital trace of him is erased. A man who values nothing more than his privacy.

‘I could sell this for money, Dain Anzelotti...' I mutter. ‘I could put this online.'

‘You could. But I know you won't.' He smiles slightly. ‘Your reputation, remember? You once said your career would be ruined by an association with me.'

‘While you said it would be enhanced.' But I smile at him shyly. ‘You trust me with this.'

I'm touched. His trust is a gift more precious than any thing.

I don't want to delete it. Ever. I don't want to lose anything from these days because I know this isn't going to last. But I realise this film isn't ever going to be enough. I want and need the real thing—him—again and again and again.