The Millionaire by Victoria Purman

reached for her shirt, she took his hands and put them around her waist.
    “Ellie,” he said, deep and gruff and he kissed her again, fiercely, hard and demanding. He urged her backwards until the backs of her knees hit the mattress and she fell, her arms above her head, giddy from the wine and his mouth. And when she realised he’d kneeled down on the hard slate floor between her knees instead of joining her on the bed, her eyes almost rolled into the back of her head. She was on the edge, had been since he’d kissed her in the kitchen, and she wanted to clench her thighs together to hold on to it, to make it last, to douse the fire burning her up. But there was no going back now. Chris’s fingers clasped her thighs and his head dipped low. He kissed one knee then the other, the inside of one thigh, then the other until he got higher and higher, closer and closer, until his tongue stroked her clit and his fingers joined in and she moaned with deep and pure pleasure.
    She couldn’t breathe. Her insides twisted and caught, pulsed and throbbed and she reached for his hair and teased her fingers in it, pushing him down into her orgasm. As it rolled and bucked her, she held her breath, exhaled deep. Her heart pounded wildly and she moaned his name. She felt half dead, half alive. And that half alive, that post-Chris Malone orgasm was the most alive she’d ever felt with a man.
    He climbed on to the bed next to her. When she opened her eyes and looked at him, he was on his side, his head resting on his hand, his elbow deep in the saggy mattress. Even in the semi-dark, those sapphire eyes of his shone like jewels. And that smart-ass grin was on full display.
    “Hey,” he said.
    Ellie threw her arms above her head, stretched out and sighed. “You were right.”
    “I’m right about a lot of things.”
    “You were right about your power. Your hair has absolutely nothing to do with it. Your tongue, however, should have a monument somewhere.”
    Chris laughed and she was still purring, still so on edge that she almost came again at the sound of it.
    “I aim to please,” he whispered in her ear.
    She felt his fingers in her curls, teasing and twisting, and then he smoothed them higher, over the curve of her belly, danced in her belly button, and teased towards her rib cage.
    She quickly found the hem of her loose shirt and tugged it low but Chris tried again, smoothing his hand up towards her breasts as he leaned down to kiss her.
    “Wait,” she said.
    “Ellie,” he growled. “I want you so damn much…”
    “And I want you, too.” Ellie pushed herself to sitting and squeezed her eyes shut.
    “So what’s wrong?”
    Ellie straightened, took a deep breath, and got off the bed. When she turned to Chris, the lamplight dim and creating shadows on his face, she steeled herself. She knew what she needed to do. Out here, in a place she’d always loved, away from all the glitz and glamour and superficiality of Sydney, she’d always been free to be herself. She’d been loved unconditionally for who she was. She’d never had to hide out here under the stars. Never had to hide the scars she’d lived with since she was eleven years old and she wasn’t going to start now.
    Chris’s gaze trawled up and down her body and the bed squeaked as he climbed off and stood next to her.
    “Did I scare you, Ellie?”
    Her eyes widened and the heat in her cheeks flared. Scare her? Part of that was true. That orgasm had shaken her to the core. But rocked her was more appropriate.
    “God, no. It was nothing you did… what you did was…”
    “Good?” Chris ran a finger down her cheek. Every nerve ending in her body arced to life at his touch.
    “Unbelievable, actually.”
    “I remember you mentioning that a monument should be erected in honour of my tongue. Or something like that.” His lips grazed her forehead.
    “I’d just had an orgasm,” she managed to say and the memory of it flooded over her, sending a shock of heat