He walked her backwards, thigh against thigh until the backs of her knees felt the bed. She tumbled backward, all legs and arms and red-hot need. He quickly applied a fresh condom and came down over her, his weight pinning her down, his mouth still locked on hers as his body speared hers in one deliciously vigorous thrust that made the breath hitch in her throat and her bones melt.
He set a fast pace that made shivers course down her spine and the fine hairs on the back of her neck dance and twitch in response. She felt the contraction of her muscles, all the sensitive nerves twanging as he rocked against her with passionate, heart-stopping urgency.
‘You drive me insane, do you know that?’ he said against her kiss-swollen mouth.
‘Ditto,’ Bella said, taking another nip at his lower lip.
He worked his way down her neck. ‘Am I going too fast for you?’
She angled her head so he could get better access. ‘Can you go faster?’
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, pulling back his pace a bit. ‘You’re so tiny compared to me. I feel like I’m crushing you.’
‘You’re not,’ she said, urging him on with little hip movements. ‘You feel just right.’
He kissed her mouth again, lingeringly and tantalisingly. Bella writhed beneath him, her body so wired she felt like she was going to implode. He read her movements as if he had direct access to her thoughts and feelings. He slipped a hand between their bodies and found the swollen nub of nerve-endings that were all shrieking and clamouring for release.
It was a cataclysmic explosion of feeling. Her whole body quaked with it as if she had been caught in the epicentre of an earthquake. She couldn’t stop from crying out, her breath coming out in jerky little gasps as the aftershocks shuddered through her.
She was still gasping as he came. She felt every powerful thrust as he emptied himself. She skated her hands down his back, holding him against her, wanting to prolong the deep connection of their bodies. There was something profoundly moving about his total loss of control. Was she deluding herself to think that what they had experienced together was different from anything else he had encountered with previous partners? Was it crazy of her to want to be something to him other than yet another sexual conquest?
Edoardo eased himself up on his forearms to look at her. ‘You’re frowning,’ he said as he brushed a flyaway strand of hair back off her face. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
‘No, of course not,’ Bella said, lowering her gaze.
He smoothed the little crease between her eyebrows with the pad of his finger. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’
She gave him a wry look. ‘So you can read my mind as well as my body, can you?’
He searched her gaze for a moment. ‘Don’t beat yourself up for giving in to me,’ he said. ‘This was always going to happen—you and me in bed together.’
‘Because you wanted to prove a point.’
‘I’m not trying to prove anything,’ he said, frowning a little. ‘I just think you need to take a bit more time about your decision. You’re panicking about your future; it’s understandable. You’re about to inherit a fortune. It’s a lot of responsibility for someone so young. You’re looking for someone to help share that responsibility—someone reliable. But I don’t want you to make a mistake that you’ll end up regretting for the rest of your life.’
‘Would you approve of anyone I chose to marry?’ she asked.
He held her gaze for a beat or two before he moved away to get off the bed. ‘I’d better let Fergus out,’ he said.
Bella frowned as she saw him reach for his trousers on the floor. ‘What’s that on your back?’
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, shaking out the creases in his trousers and stepping into them. ‘Just a couple of chicken-pox scars.’
She grabbed at the sheet and draped it around herself as she padded over to him. ‘They look pretty big for chicken-pox scars,’ she said, putting a hand on his arm to stall him. ‘Let me see.’
‘Leave it, Bella,’ he said and shrugged off her hold.
Bella looked up into his inscrutable features.
‘Why have you got those little white circles below your tan line?’ she asked. ‘There must be eight or ten at least.’
It was an aeon before he spoke. A battle seemed to be playing out on his face. She could see the shadows flickering in his eyes as each second passed. The column of his throat looked tight, as if he was having trouble swallowing. His jaw was tightly clenched; she could see the in-and-out movement of a tiny muscle in the centre of his cheek. ‘They’re burns,’ he said.