Sunday Smooch - At the Italian's Bidding by Annie West

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!

Today we have a smooch Annie West from but first 


... the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is Jillian Jones.


Can you please contact to receive your copy of Clare Connelly's book by emailing Amy Andrews at amy(at)amyandrews(dot)com(dot)au


And now for today's Sunday Smooch from AT THE ITALIAN'S BIDDING. This is the 5th book in Annie's Hot Italian Nights novella series,  a 1st August release which is currently available for preorder.

She’s out of bounds but how can he resist?

Niccolo might risk his neck on the racing car circuit but there’s one thing he won’t risk — his friendship with the De Laurentis family. Which means he dare not give in to his feelings for his best friend’s sister, Lia De Laurentis, no matter how impossible it is to keep his distance. Yet when he needs a pretend girlfriend, just for a weekend, who else can he trust to play the part?  

Lia can’t believe she says yes to Niccolo Marchesi’s outrageous request. Her teenage crush on her brother’s daredevil friend has turned into full-scale infatuation, so how is she supposed to withstand two whole nights of temptation, pretending to be his lover? She knows every touch is a lie but it feels like the real thing.

When honour and passion clash, will his scruples prove stronger than her willpower?

Scene set-up

Lia and Niccolo have been trying to resist their passion for each other. Niccolo because he doesn't want to take advantage of a girl who he thinks looks on him like a brother and Lia because she believes Niccolo doesn't have romantic feelings for her, that he prefers the leggy blondes who follow him on the racing car circuit. Now, after a weekend pretending to be an item, tension has reached breaking point. Lia can't conceal her distress, believing he'll never return her feelings. An evening of putting on a smiling face at a big society party is too much, now they're back in the privacy of their suite.

Smooch  -

‘Whatever it is, we’ll make it better.’

She shook her head, almost violently, her long hair flaring and slipping over his hand.

‘No.’ Her voice was stronger now, with a whiplash undercurrent of bitterness. ‘This isn’t something you can kiss and make better.’

Niccolo almost groaned, wishing the words undone. His attention dropped instantly to her lips, finely cut and lushly inviting.

There was a roaring in his ears, a shaking in his belly and his hands tightened on her, one at her back, one sliding round to cup her head. He couldn’t let go. Couldn’t force himself to step away. His feet were cemented to the floor.

She tempted him beyond endurance and she didn’t even realise.

‘Why not?’ His grating voice was unrecognisable.

He told himself it would be fine to touch her mouth. A tiny kiss from a friend, over as soon as it began. A demonstration that he cared for her, was here for her. That whatever her problem was, he’d help.

A brotherly kiss!

Except when he leaned in to touch his lips to her cheek she moved, no doubt startled. He felt the shock in her straining body.

Then somehow, surely without intending to, his lips grazed hers. Grazed and clung.

Because to withdraw was utterly impossible.

Lia’s lips were so soft, so perfect, fitting to his as if made for that very purpose. Niccolo froze. Amazing as it was to admit, he’d never felt so undone by a woman. Yet all he did was touch her lips!

They tasted like honey. Honey and Lia, the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.

Niccolo inhaled sharply, strengthening his resolve to draw back. Except now he dragged in air warm from her flesh, scented with the lily and woman perfume of Lia. There was no turning back. Not yet. He stood unmoving, one hand cupping her skull, the other splayed over the sinuous indentation of her waist.

Until, shocking him to the core, he felt the slick of her tongue along his mouth. And a warm vibration, like a soundless hum of pleasure, resonate through her.

Niccolo tried to summon the will to move, to break the embrace. Then it came again, tentative but real, her tongue sliding across his bottom lip.

A man was only human after all.

He’d done his best, tried to be strong, but there was a limit to endurance.

Angling his head, pressing closer, he opened his mouth and sucked her questing tongue into his mouth. Sucked hard, drawing his own tongue against it in a duel that was all invitation and pleasure.

Niccolo’s hands trembled as they never did at the wheel of a racing vehicle. He felt as if he held sunlight and innocence in his arms and was torn between protectiveness and the need to possess.

He moved his hand, changed his grip to angle her head for easier access and, instead of stiffening in rejection, Lia melted in his arms, her curves sliding against him, her head bowing back under the pressure of his, and again that wordless vibration of pleasure. He tasted it, swallowed it, then plunged deep into her mouth, demanding more.

It was like admiring a daisy and discovering it was a lush, sensual rose in disguise.

Her mouth was rich velvet, tempting and seductive. Her body undulated against him in blatant, needy invitation, and Niccolo found himself backing her up against the dressing table. He crowded her between his thighs, his erection instant and powerful, jammed up against her belly.

Somewhere, in the back of his brain, his conscience commanded he pull back. But then Lia’s hands crept up his chest, over his shoulders and she wrapped her fingers around his neck, pulling him down towards her as if she too couldn’t get enough.

It was bliss.

It was torture.

Devastatingly fantastic yet not nearly enough. Already his hand was roving her body, down over the ripe curve of her buttocks, then digging in through the thin fabric till she gasped and rocked her pelvis into him, her head falling back.

Niccolo had never seen anything more alluring than Lia, her kiss-swollen lips open as she gasped for air, a flush of arousal tinting her throat and cheeks and her eyes glowing gold. They were a siren’s eyes, luring him on, inviting him to forget restrictions and taboos and take her. Here, now.

His breath came in harsh gulps that couldn’t quite fill his lungs. His skin was tight and uncomfortable and he needed to rip off his clothes.

But more than that, he needed to have Lia. The pain of not tearing himself free of his trousers and taking her right here was making him dizzy.

‘We should—’ He’d been about to say something about stopping, except Lia tilted her hips in a sinuous move that brought her pelvis high against him.

His conscience disintegrated in a ripple of lust that began at the base of his spine and raced straight round to his groin.

Lia knew what she was doing. She wasn’t that innocent.

Her heavy-lidded stare invited and challenged.

With a growl of triumph, Niccolo swept his mouth back down to hers, possessing her with a bruising thoroughness that still couldn’t allay the need thrumming in his veins. He hungered for Lia, for all of her, writhing and gasping beneath him as he took them both to heaven.

He slid his hand from her face, down past her collarbone to her breast. His hand trembled as he cupped her fullness in his fingers. Was it because she fitted him so perfectly or because this was Lia, the woman who’d been secretly driving him crazy for so long? Whatever the reason, she made him want to slide to his knees and worship her. To give her everything he had. And to please her as no man had ever pleased her before.

He smiled as her eyes fluttered closed and she arched up high into his touch, a tiny sound of delight falling from her open lips.

It was then that Niccolo knew he was utterly lost.

Niccolo was Lia's first crush. But instead of growing out of that crush, her love grows stronger.

Do you remember your first crush? Was it a singer or actor or maybe even your older brother's best mate? I wonder if any of those first loves become 'the real thing'? Or alternatively maybe there was something you adored as a kid that still plays a significant part in your life.

Leave a comment and you could win a Kindle copy of AT THE ITALIAN'S BIDDING. Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced and a smooch from Melanie Milburne will be posted!

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver