Captive in His Castle by Chantelle Shaw Page A

if she was a rag doll. She felt as boneless as one, she thought ruefully. One kiss was all it had taken to turn the sharp-tongued firebrand Jess Harper she prided herself on being into a trembling mass of nervous excitement. Drago was going to make love to her, and she was not going to stop him.
    He carried her through to his bedroom. As her gaze fell on the four-poster bed, with its opulent gold silk drapes and sheets, the dull ache in the pit of her stomach became an insistent throb and she was conscious of molten warmth between her thighs. He placed her on the bed and stared down at her with a brooding intensityin his black eyes that was just as arousing as if he had touched her.
    ‘I want to make love to you slowly—indulge in leisurely foreplay and prolong the pleasure until one of us begs for release,’ he bit out. ‘But I am so turned on that there isn’t a chance in hell of that happening,
mia bella.’
    His taut voice revealed that he was hanging onto his self-control with supreme effort. Amazed that she could have such an effect on him, Jess touched the nerve jumping in his cheek. Her heart leapt when he turned his head so that his mouth grazed her fingers.
    ‘I want you too,’ she whispered.
    It was what Drago wanted to hear, and his body reacted predictably. But the faint hesitancy he heard in her voice made him hold back from ripping off her nightgown and pushing her legs apart so that he could take her hard and fast, as the blood pounding in his veins urged him to do. She was not behaving as he had expected her to. His previous sexual encounters had always been with experienced women, who knew how to please him and were not shy about stating what pleased them. But Jess was clearly waiting for him to take the lead.
    She looked incredibly sexy, stretched out on the bed with her fiery hair spread over the pillows, her small, pale breasts with their tightly puckered pink nipples practically begging for the ministrations of his tongue. And yet at the same time he sensed an innocence about her that made him think that she had not had many lovers.
    Why the idea should make him want to grin he did not know, but as he smiled at her and watched her lips curve in a tentative response he felt a curious tug onhis insides, and he forced himself to relax and slow the pace a little.
    ‘Show me how much you want me,’ he murmured as he bent his head and slanted his mouth over hers. Her immediate response stoked his desire, and he groaned and deepened the kiss until he felt tremors run through her body and realised that he was shaking too.
    He heard the faint catch of her breath when he stroked her breasts, and the soft moan she gave as he flicked his thumb-pads across her nipples made him want to drag her beneath him and seek the release he craved. She was so sweetly responsive, and yet he sensed she was surprised by his caresses, as if the sensations she felt when he kissed her and touched her body were new to her.
    From then on Drago forgot his own needs and concentrated on arousing Jess. He breathed in the delicate fragrance of her skin as he kissed her throat, the creamy slopes of her breasts, and finally closed his lips around one taut, dusky peak and then its twin. Her nightgown was bunched up around her waist, and he pushed it over her hips and placed his hand over the slight mound of her womanhood, hidden from his gaze beneath the fragile barrier of white lace knickers. She gave an involuntary movement and tried to clamp her legs together, but released her breath on a shivery sigh when he gently eased her thighs apart and slid his fingers beneath her panties. With delicate precision he dipped a finger into her moist opening and felt her buck her hips as he probed deeper into her honeyed sweetness.
    Jess trembled as Drago continued his intimate exploration. She had never experienced such intense pleasure as he was eliciting, with his wickedly inventive fingers and with his mouth as he bent his head to her breasts