His acceptance of her antipathy made something ache inside Valentina, but the promise of no emotions also freed something. She knew she could never love someone and risk losing them again, the way she’d lost Mario. Something pure and innocent inside her had been lost for ever that night. The grief was too deep, too raw. Gio was too inextricably bound up with pain for her, and guilt. The guilt of the shameful secret she was still too cowardly to acknowledge.
The shadow of Mario’s death was too long. But she wanted him. She’d never connected with another man on such a visceral, physical level. This would burn out, it had to. Intensity like this couldn’t last….
As if reading her thoughts, Gio said, ‘This will burn out, and when it does … we’ll move on.’
We’ll move on. Valentina wondered if they really could move on, find some kind of closure. For a long moment nothing was said. Valentina looked into Gio’s eyes until she felt as if she were drowning. And then she felt some great resistance she’d been clinging on to dissolve within her. She couldn’t fight this.
She put her hand over his on her jaw and turned her face so that she could press a kiss to his palm. She closed her eyes but she could feel the tremor that went through his body, or was it hers? She couldn’t tell.
Gio moved closer to her, putting a hand to the small of her back, and tugged her closer. Valentina sent up a fervent prayer that they could move on from this, because she didn’t have the strength to stop now. And as his mouth met hers and she melted into him and his kiss, it felt so right.
Gio was trying to curb the rush of desire sending his brain into a fiery orbit. Valentina felt so unutterably good in his arms. Soft and pliant and curvy. Her breasts were pressed against his chest and he could feel the thrust of hard nipples. Letting his hand drop he found the sweet curve of her bottom and cupped it, softly at first and then harder when he felt the instinctive sway of her hips towards him.
Victory was heady and he was rapidly getting
lost in the nectar of the sweetest kiss. As sweet as it was though, he wanted more; he wanted harder, darker. He wanted to be inside her, and he had to be careful. She was innocent. Exerting extreme self-control Gio managed to somehow break the connection and pull back, almost groaning when he saw how long it took for Valentina to open heavy-lidded eyes, their dark depths even darker, pupils huge. Her lips dark red and swollen.
‘Let’s take this slow … OK?’
Valentina sucked in a breath, trying to force oxygen to her short-circuiting brain. That had just been a kiss and a relatively chaste one and already she felt as if she were burning up from the inside out.
Before she could articulate anything that might sound vaguely coherent Gio was taking her by the hand and leading her into the bedroom. He pushed her back gently towards the bed and she collapsed onto the edge to find him at her feet, those big capable hands moving up her legs and under the dress.
He looked up at her for a second. Lord. Valentina could feel her lower belly muscles clench hard. She couldn’t speak, could only watch as Gio’s eyes went back to her legs and watch how they cupped behind her knees before inching ever higher, pushing her dress up inexorably until her legs were bared.
Gio’s cheeks were flushed and Valentina felt the warmth of his calloused palms move up until they cupped her buttocks intimately. She gasped. He was right between her legs now, pushing them apart. She half collapsed back onto the bed, her elbows the only thing holding her up.
Gio looked up at her and said throatily, ‘Trust me?’
Valentina bit her lip and after a heated moment nodded her head. Without taking his eyes off hers Valentina could feel him lift her gently so that he could push her dress all the way up; now her entire lower body was exposed to him. For a fleeting second she wished ardently that she was wearing one of the impossibly delicate lace panties and not her very plain black ones.
But she soon forgot about that when she felt Gio’s hands find her panties and slowly start to move them down and Valentina felt herself lifting her hips ever so slightly to help. Somewhere she was aware of a shocked part of herself wondering how on earth she was letting this happen. With this man? When only minutes ago she’d been trying to throw him out of this room. But like a coward she blocked it out; this growing, pulling desire in her body was too strong.
Gio pulled Valentina’s panties off and threw them somewhere on the ground; now she was exposed to him completely, her dress bunched up over her waist. They seemed to have passed go and gone straight to level one hundred but all Valentina could see was the way Gio was looking at her with such awe and reverence, his big hands now on her thighs, spreading her for him.
He bent and pressed kisses along her sensitive inner thighs and she could feel the bristle of his stubble. It enflamed her nerve endings and she squirmed against his mouth, only to have his hands tighten on her, silently ordering her to be still.
His mouth was getting higher and higher, rising inexorably to the apex of her legs where she felt so hot and yet indecently damp. When his breath feathered there Valentina’s elbows gave out and she collapsed onto the bed, just as Gio’s mouth found her and she felt his tongue touch her moist cleft.
She had to put a fist to her mouth and bite down hard against the pleasure he was now wreaking on her body with such shocking intimacy. He was licking her, tasting her and ruthlessly pushing those legs apart when they wanted to close against this exquisite invasion.
And then she felt his tongue opening her up to him, exploring and stabbing deep inside, tasting her very essence. Valentina felt faint. A finger joined his tongue, pushing and stretching. She could feel her hips moving against his mouth, seeking more, a deeper penetration. She felt so stretched and yet unfulfilled and wanted more. A tight feeling was coiling deep inside her, getting tighter and tighter, making her move even more restlessly.
Then she felt two fingers, pushing deeper, and his tongue found and circled her clitoris with ruthless sucking intensity until Valentina broke free of the building tension to soar high to a place she’d ever seen before. Waves of pleasure more intense than she could have ever imagined broke through her and over her. It was so stupendous she couldn’t even cry out, absorbing it in shocked silence, biting into her fist even harder in a bid to contain what she felt.
As she floated back down into some sense of reality Valentina became aware that she was still throbbing in spasms, deep inside her. Her fist fell from her mouth, too heavy to hold up any more. Gio’s hands were gone and she looked up languorously to see him rise up like some kind of avenging God to rip open his shirt to reveal that magnificent chest. His eyes burnt into hers, and his hands went to his trousers, making quick work of his belt, buttons and zip.
Valentina couldn’t even lift her head, it felt so heavy. She was aware of being displayed wantonly towards him but couldn’t drum up a sense of shame. Not after what she’d just experienced. She’d never known it could be like that ….
‘I want to see you,’ Gio muttered thickly, finding her hands and pulling her gently upwards. Valentina sat up and felt light-headed. Gio was pulling her to her feet and found her zip, yanking it down, and taking her dress with it so that it dropped at her feet with a soft swishing sound. Now she stood before him in nothing but her own plain bra and Gio’s dark eyes were molten as they looked her up and down.
To her surprise, Valentina could feel some of the delicious lethargy move and shift, dissipate, so that she was being infected by a rising sense of tension again. It coiled deep inside her. Gio was naked and she looked down to see his erection thrusting towards her. Instinctively she reached for him, wanting to touch him, and wrapped a hand around his thick impressive length.
He breathed deep and his hands tightened on her arms where they’d gone to steady her a moment ago. Valentina was fascinated by the feel of him under her hand; he was like steel encased in velvet, infinitely strong and hard and yet so vulnerable. She looked up and her hand stopped when she saw the stark and almost feral need imprinted on his face. She gulped.
Gently he took her hand off him and said, ‘I don’t know how long I can last if you touch me like that. And I need to last—this is your first time….’
Valentina’s heart seemed to miss a beat. Her first time, here with this man. The reality suddenly hit her, along with the very fervent assertion that she didn’t want to be anywhere else. That threw up all sorts of emotional contradictions within her and to drive them down where she didn’t have to analyse them Valentina stepped up to Gio and put her hands on his face.