The Silver Bride

For after the way Dior had looked at her, exhausted or not, she had the horrendous urge to stick to him like superglue.

Donning the sheer, strappy midnight-blue nightdress because it was cool, blanking out her unproductive thoughts, Stella padded out to the lounge again.

The maid reappeared with a tray. Stella tucked into the delicious buffet-style offerings with appetite and then curled up on a sofa, too sleepy to keep her eyes open any longer.

The arrival of yet another meal was what finally awakened Stella, but she wasn't hungry enough to eat anything more. The sun was beginning to go down and she couldn't believe that she had slept away the entire afternoon.

She would never manage to sleep again later, and what a terrible waste it had been not to at least walk along that beautiful beach outside! She rummaged through the eclectic mix of CDs stored in the state-of-the-art entertainment center.

Smiling to herself, she put on flamenco music, remembering the endless dance and drama classes which her mother had insisted she attend. Dancing was still her favorite method of working out. She performed a few exploratory movements, letting the rhythm flow until all her muscles had loosened up.

Then, picking up on the faster tempo, she gave herself up to the passionate music. Her b.r.e.a.s.ts heaving with the rapidity of her breathing, the sheer strain clinging to her damp skin, Stella came to a fluid halt as the CD moved to an end.

She let her head slowly fall back, her slender spine arching into a perfect curve. 'That was incredible...' DiorHarlequin whispered with ragged emphasis. Stella whirled breathlessly round on her toes, the faraway look in her eyes banished by dismay and disconcertion.

Brilliant, dark deep-set eyes sought hers. 'Quite extraordinary,' he told her with husky intensity. 'So much fire, so much pathos, every single movement, every tiny gesture telling a story.' As slow-burning color swept up from her extended throat Stella shivered, outraged that he had not immediately announced his presence.

You should've told me you were here...you had no right to watch me!' 'I didn't want to interrupt you...' A shimmer of gold as bright as a flame glimmered in Dior'ssemi-screened gaze as it lingered on her ripe pink mouth.

Her lips parted, an alien ache stirring low in her belly as the silence stretched. 'That's not an excuse...' she protested unevenly, her slight frame tautening in an instinctive reaction to the growing tension in the atmosphere.

Dior Harlequin threw his darkly handsome head back and surveyed her. 'Skylar...is there a man alive who would have interrupted you?' he demanded with roughened urgency. Stella was so still and so tense she could feel every beat of her heart—even, she was dimly convinced, the very pulse of her blood through her veins.

She collided with Dior's twinkling gaze and she felt intoxicated. Dizzy, disorientated, no longer able to get her brain to send a message to her tongue. Indeed, it was suddenly such a challenge to keep a grip on a single coherent thought that she simply stared at him in bewilderment.

Her body was already responding far in advance of her brain, her b.r.e.a.s.ts swelling heavily, tautened peaks pitching into almost painful prominence. A feverish flush on his sculpted cheekbones, Dior let his stunning eyes roam hungrily over her beautiful face, and then at an incredibly slow pace over her slim figure.

The fabric of the nightdress clung like a second skin to her surprisingly lush shape, molding her straining n.i.p.p.l.es, the shapely curve of her h.i.p.s and the slender line of the t.h.i.g.h. The high-voltage charge of his powerful s.e.x.u.a.lity entrapped her, filling her with excitement and leaving her utterly without defense. '

Watching you dance was the most e.r.o.t.i.c experience I have ever had outside the bedroom door,' Dior confessed with driven urgency. 'I have never known such an overpowering need to possess a woman.

And right now I'm just reveling like an insane teenager in the p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e of feeling something this intense!' Stella quivered, shocked rigid by that bold speech and sufficiently jarred to begin reasoning again. An insane teenager? Him? What sort of a line was that? Involuntarily, she glanced down at herself and froze.