Sophia saw as his hand closed around a double vibrator and she closed her eyes, arousal sparkling from the suspense. Its broad crown brushed her opening and slowly slid inside her.

She gasped at the invading feeling and jerked back on his hand, “More.”

“Easy,” he said, pushing it to the hilt and turning it on a slow pulse.

Sophia’s body immediately tensed when the clitoris stimulator massaged her. She moaned, concentrating on keeping the impending climax at bay. “I need you. Now.”

He eased again two oiled fingers into the tight opening of her ass. His fingers left her for a moment and then she felt one of his hands grip her hip hard and the head of his penis pressed against her sphincter.

Oh. Sophia’s eyes flew open. A multitude of sensations washed over her. A touch of fear and a hot wave of excitement. Pleasure rocketed through her abdomen.

“Relax,” he ordered before he pushed forward slowly, ever so slowly, until it breached the initial resistance and stop allowing her to adjust to the sensation.

Sophia gasped, tightened and then relaxed, moaning.

“Are you okay?” He asked with his eyes closed, enjoying the pressure and the velvet, hot feeling around him. As he felt her relaxing, he probed, “More?”

“Yes, slowly. But don’t stop.” Her fingers fisted the sheets as she sought to offset the burning as he pressed deeper. She moaned deep in her throat. “Oh. You’re big.”

“You’re tight.” His fingers dug into her hip as he gained more entrance. He closed his eyes, wrestling with his desire to sink all the way down in a powerful thrust. He wanted her to like this as much as he did. “Fuck, Sophia!”

“Fuck. Me.”

Her hoarse order made him increase the speed of the vibrator, as he slowly sank deeper and deeper, all the way into her.

A strangled cry of delight left her mouth as Alistair began to thrust shallowly and slowly. In and out. She’d never felt such an exquisite fullness and overwhelming pleasure. It was part pain, part delicious ecstasy, and they combined to send her spiraling into the most excruciatingly, wondrous frustration she’d ever endured.

“You. Are. Hot,” he hissed as he ground in and out of her. “Fucking. Hot.”

“That feels fucking good.” She felt utterly and deliciously conquered. She could only clutch the sheets and vocalize the pleasure he was making her feel as he plunged into her in long thrusts of his hips.

Gently and slowly at first.

Powerfully and swiftly toward the end as his body demanded release.

Alistair didn’t want it to end. The sensations were overwhelming pleasurable as with each deep thrust his own erection was massaged by the vibrator inside Sophia.

He grabbed her hair around his fist, jerking her backwards, dominating her completely.

Sophia moaned out loud, “Yes!”

Loud grunts left his mouth as he forced her to take him deeper and faster. “I can’t last much longer. Come for me.”

She needed it. She needed him. “Come with me.”

She felt as he tensed behind her, plunging harder. His hand on her hip released her and he slapped her butt.

“Yeah,” Sophia moaned and he slapped the other.

Her orgasm blossomed and grew bigger than ever, until it consumed her. She shattered in a million crystal pieces, burying her face in the covers to stifle her loud scream.

Alistair shouted her name with another hard plunge, every sensation magnified by the pleasure that he could feel rippling through Sophia’s body.

He gripped her hips tightly, holding her against him as he finished and her entire body jerked and convulsed as she rode the violent and intense climax in tandem with his.

Eyes closed, her breath coming in torturous gasps, she stayed exactly where his hands put her as he withdrew.

“Are you all right?” Alistair asked huskily, after a few minutes.

She nodded, unable to form a coherent response. His heart was beating against her cheek as wildly as hers against his ribs.

“You are the most amazing woman,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head, holding her tightly against him. “No one has ever made me feel like this. Tha mo cridhe buin do Thu.”

“What?” she breathed almost sleeping.

“My heart belongs to you,” he murmured in her hair, completely sated and happy, running a hand over her curvaceous back. “Only to you.”

“Humph,” she huffed, “it better be. I don’t share.”

11.01 a.m.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty, wake up,” he whispered in Sophia’s ear.

“I’m not blonde!” She threw a pillow at him and rolled to the other side of the bed. Muscles she didn’t know she had, complained with the movement. She grunted.

“Are you sore?” he asked.

Understatement of the year. She groaned, “You wore me out.”

“And you liked it,” Alistair laughed. He laid across the bed on his stomach and his fingers caressed her back. “Come on, Beauty. Wake up.”

“Yeah, I did like it.” She opened one eye, looked at him and mumbled something in Portuguese that he was not sure he wanted her to translate. “I want more.”

He had already showered and dressed in a white linen shirt, with the sleeves rolled up over his strong forearms, and loose jeans.

She rolled to his side and stretched. “What time is it?”

“Eleven o’clock. Everyone’s already had breakfast and Munro called. He left the airport with your sister and her fiancé a few minutes ago. They will be here at any moment.”

“Oh, my God!” Sophia jumped from the bed and ran to the bathroom. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

Felipe and Angelica from Rio de Janeiro and the twins from Florence had arrived on the day before. Alice and Elena had planned a weekend at Galewick Hall to take some of the load off Sophia’s shoulders. The MacCraig, Allenthorp and Espírito Santo families had blended very well.

Even the twins. Alistair chuckled to himself and lay down on his back. He could hear bells toiling in the air. It was funny to see Alexander and Tavish agog with the blonde petite women. The only ones missing were Carolina and her fiancé, who had just arrived from California.

Alistair’s forehead creased. There’s something about that guy that I don’t trust. The way he looks at Sophia. He shook his head annoyed, remembering the way Drake had treated Sophia on the few occasions they were together in Rio. He better keep his hands away from Sophia. He sighed. Davidoff, Ashford, Westwood... The list is growing. Well, this is the price I-

“Ready, Handsome,” Sophia threw herself over his body with a huge smile on her face.

He was startled from his musings. “Jesus Christ, Sophia! Are you planning on killing me before the wedding?”

She smiled mischievously and rubbed herself on his crotch, kissing him passionately, her hands delving in his silky hair to slant his mouth to her exploration.

He grunted in her mouth and his hands went under the skirt of her dress finding the round cheeks of her buttocks. He broke the kiss, frowning. “Are you going commando?”

She threw her head back in a happy laugh and picked up his hand showing him the tiny thong she was wearing.

He moaned, closed his eyes and his hands pressed her onto him. “Definitively, you want to kill me.”

Her eyes were sparkling when she dropped a last kiss on his lips, “Only with sex, milord.”

2.49 p.m.

Sophia sat beside Felipe on one of the library sofas and whispered, “What happened to Carol?”

Felipe harrumphed, “She says it’s love.”

Maybe it was exactly what Carol needed. Sophia was flabbergasted. She almost didn’t recognize the ravishing and fashionable woman who regally stepped out of the Rolls.

In less than four months, Carolina was a new woman. She was thinner than Sophia, and wearing contact lenses under rosé gold Cartier sunglasses, a stylish short dress and high heels that elongated her already long legs, she looked like a model. Especially next to Drake who treated her like a porcelain doll. However, there was something strange Sophia could not name.

Sophia crossed her legs. Immediately, Alistair placed an arm over her shoulders and his free hand came to rest on her thigh. She looked up at him and saw lust in his green depths. He raised an eyebrow and dipped his head to whisper in her ear, “I can’t forget your thong. Want to go upstairs?”

She gave him a mischievous smile and shook her head, “Behave.”

“Sophia, have you been to the ESCALA?” Carol asked Sophia.

Where? “Escala?”

“The Essex Collection of Art from Latin America.” Tavish said as he sat in the armchair next to Alistair. “It’s nearby at Wivenhoe Park on the grounds of the University of Essex. They have a very interesting collection.”

“In fact, Tavish Uilleam, it’s the only public collection in Europe that is dedicated to modern and contemporary art from Latin America,” Drake drawled from his place beside Carolina. “Carol is going to play one of the roles in my next movie and she needs to immerse herself in the field.”

Sophia’s gaze crossed with Felipe’s.

“I didn’t know that Carol had talent for acting,” Felipe raised his brows.

“Carolina,” Drake drawled her name sensuously on his tongue fixing his eyes on Felipe’s, “is a woman of many, many hidden talents. It just took me a minute to see she was not valued as she should be.”

Really? Sophia put her hand over Felipe’s fisted one.

Carol looked at her fiancé with adoration in her eyes. She entwined her fingers in his and told Sophia, “Drake is a dear.”

“How about you, Sophia?” The Californian film director raked his gaze over Sophia. “You could play the supporting character.”