any more, only smoky swirls of grey and black, and even the grey was losing ground the closer she came to that final leap. And her mouth was open, the tense little gasps of pleasure growing thicker, more arousing when he’d thought he could never be more aroused.
But Natalia Deyton could make him feel things he had never felt before. She was warm and she was generous, and she held nothing in reserve. When his breathing grew tense and the rhythm became stronger, she simply came with him—all the way—stroke for stroke, shudder for exquisite shudder. Her hands shot up, grasped his face, her eyes spiralling out that final hint of grey as her body quickened. Then, ‘Giancarlo,’ she breathed.
That was all. Just his name in that soul-stripping way, then she leapt—Dio, she leapt, on a convulsion of muscle that completely shattered him—and shot him into the same wild place still echoing with his name as if she was pulling him with her into the kind of climax that took him way beyond anything he had ever experienced.
The woman was a witch. His witch, was the final fiercely possessive thought he had before he lost himself in the hot, dark bounty of their shared release…
Lying there beneath him with his face now pressed into the side of her throat and her body still pulsing gently around his possession, Natalia closed her eyes and just let herself float on a lazy sea of satiation. His weight was heavy on her but she didn’t mind—she felt wonderfully invaded by his heat and his scent and an awareness that both of them were lying stretched out without a single bone between them that hadn’t gone weak.
A smile touched her mouth, though she tried to stop it.
‘Shh,’ he breathed against her throat as if he was afraid she was about to speak and spoil the moment.
But that was her very last intention; she felt too good, too at peace, too at one with this lover of hers who had given as much as he had taken. It was a beautiful knowledge. And just as beautiful to know from that lazy ‘shh’ that he was feeling the same way about it.
Eventually they moved, though, eventually with seemingly perfect sensory co-ordination he withdrew from her just as she reached the point where she needed to stretch her limbs to encourage them to recover some substance. With a lazy kiss pressed to her throat, he slid himself sideways, bent a knee across her thighs as if to make sure she didn’t decide to stray, then came up on one elbow to look down on her gravely while gentle fingers carefully combed stray locks of her hair away from her face and throat and shoulders.
It was an act of tenderness she had not expected, and her throat tightened slightly on a tug of emotion as she lay there.
‘You said my name,’ he murmured suddenly.
Her long lashes flickered on a blink of surprise. ‘I did?’ she responded, having no memory of saying anything, she had been so lost to her senses.
He smiled an oddly satisfied smile. ‘Sí,’ he confirmed. ‘You called for me, Giancarlo, at your moment of ecstasy. It—pleased me.’
She could see that it did. But the remark still confused her. ‘Who else did you expect me to call for?’ she enquired with a little frown and teasing glint of amusement.
His response threw her. Instead of coming up with some answering tease to keep the same soft, intimate mood flowing, his face hardened and he growled something harsh in his own language, then swooped on her mouth with the kind of kiss that staked a claim she didn’t think was necessary since he already possessed her.
‘Mine,’ he reiterated fiercely when he drew away again. ‘You are my woman now, you understand me? You think only of me, you say only my name, and you dream only of me, comprende?’
‘Oh, very possessive,’ she mocked, not sure whether to be pleased by the burst of jealous possessiveness or angry at him for feeling he needed to stake his claim!
‘Sí,’ he confirmed, no shame, no apology. ‘I am Sicilian,’ he added with a lift of his chin that seemed to be conveying something portentous in that announcement. ‘I guard what belongs to me.’
‘And you think I now belong to you, is that it?’
‘Sí.’
‘And who do you belong to?’
‘You, of course.’ He frowned as if he didn’t see the necessity for the question.
Which was Natalia’s point, because neither did she see the necessity for this conversation at all! Unless this was his roundabout way of getting down to laying out the ground rules, she then thought on a sudden tight sting of understanding. ‘How long for?’ she asked huskily.
His frown darkened. ‘For as long as it lasts, I suppose,’ he answered. ‘Who can say?’ he added with what she supposed was a very Sicilian noncommittal shrug to go with his question.
But the shrug came too late, because Natalia was already ahead of him, ahead and walking along the self-same line. ‘S-six weeks,’ she heard herself say in a breathless tense little whisper, needing now to lay out the terms of this affair before he did it for her. ‘When Edward comes back, you go home, and this will be over…’
Edward—? She dared to bring Edward, here, into his bed after what they had just shared? She dared to speak Edward’s name? Lay her rules about the length of their affair before him—in words that revolved around Edward?
Like a man who had just been attacked by a snake, he flinched right back from her, his eyes turning black as the vision in front of him changed from beauty personified in his eyes into Medusa—turning him into a pillar of stone where he lay.
Nothing that had ever happened to him before had made him feel as bad as he did right now. For here they were, having only just recovered from one of the most passionate interludes life could offer—and she was bartering terms like a whore in the market place. But with those terms revolving around Edward?
Anger suddenly roared, pumping the life right back into his frozen limbs to help throw his body round until he was looming threateningly over her. Unsure at this point if he was going to strangle her or kiss her darling Edward right out of existence, he reached for her shoulders.
She stiffened in alarm. ‘What did I do? What did I say?’ she begged in complete bewilderment as to why he was suddenly so angry. In her view, he supposed, she had just handed him the perfect excuse for dumping her and he should be damn well singing in elation!