He stroked again, and again, and again, and with each stroke the surge of excitement thrust through her. She clutched at his back, feeling the skin dampen as the pace of his lovemaking increased. There was an urgency to him now, and she joined him, as eager for him to find his pleasure as she was to find hers again. Their bodies moved in unison, her hips rising to meet his thrusts, her head thrown back, feeling with each urgent, pulsing stroke that she was coming nearer, nearer to something, something…
Something that crested like a deep ocean wave, crested and then thundered through her, shocking her with its intensity, a surging, powerful breaker that caught her and plunged her into a maelstrom of overpowering sensation, seeming to roll her over and over, tumbling her, limbs threshing, muscles convulsing, sensation bucking through her, carrying her on and on and on…
She lay in utter exhaustion, supine beneath him, and realised dimly that his dead weight was pressing down upon her, the full length of his body. His heaviness was total, his limbs completely inert. For a long, timeless while they lay together, still one but both cast away on the furthest shore.
She was tired, infinitely tired. Slowly, heavily, her arms fell from his back, collapsing on to the sheets. Her eyes sank shut and she breathed in the scent of his body as sleep took her.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE awoke, it seemed, an aeon later. As she eased into consciousness her first thoughts were confused. Where was she? Where was Benji? Why hadn’t he woken her as he always did? Panicked, she hauled herself upright and blinked, even more disorientated as she stared around at the strange bedroom. And then total, absolute memory flooded through her, and at the same time she became aware of a dull, strained ache between her legs. But more pressing matters asserted themselves.
‘Benji!’ she cried out in alarm, and as if he had simply been waiting for her call at that moment Rafaello sauntered into his bedroom via the adjoining bathroom, carrying Benji. Seeing her, both broke into smiles, Benji immediately reaching out his arms for her. Rafaello—clad only, Magda became immediately aware, in a pair of jeans—crossed to the bed, bared torso very clearly on display, and lowered Benji down to her.
‘Maria has given him his breakfast and got him clean and dressed.’ His eyes swept down over her. ‘You were tired, cara, and I let you sleep.’
Magda bent her head, feeling heat stealing into her cheeks, and busied herself embracing an enthusiastic Benji. But as soon as he had reassured himself of his mother’s presence he climbed off her and started to burrow under the bedclothes. Magda wished she could do the same. Looking Rafaello in the eye right now was not something she felt she could do.
‘Shy, cara?’ he enquired softly, recognising her reaction.
He found it enchanting. Swiftly, Rafaello’s mind worked back, trying to recall any similar instances of past partners greeting him in the morning with a becoming flush, downcast eyes and a general air of shy confusion. There were none.
All his previous women had been highly sexually confident females, knowing full well their own attractions. He couldn’t imagine any of them ever having been shy about going to bed with him—or anyone.
Magda was a million miles away from any of his previous women.
And not just because of her virginity. Or her shyness.
Just what it was about her that made her so different he couldn’t work out yet.
But he’d find out.
He lowered himself to the bed, noting with inner humour how she automatically jerked her legs away from him beneath the bedclothes. Placing his hands on the mattress either side of her thighs, he leant forward.
‘Buon giorno,’ he said invitingly, his eyes gleaming softly.
She didn’t seem to know what he wanted, so he showed her.
A soft kiss of greeting, just brushing her tender mouth and then withdrawing. As he drew back he saw her flush had mounted, and she still could not meet his eye.
He smiled, and saw her gaze flicker momentarily to his.
‘There is no need for shyness, cara. You are a woman now.’
Yes, he thought, and I have made her so. An amazing feeling swept through him at the realisation. It was quite extraordinary. She was transformed from that poor, scrawny, unlovely creature whom no man would look at once, let alone twice, into something…someone…. who would turn heads wherever she went.
A strange sensation moved inside him. He did not know what it was—it was something he had never felt before, and he wondered at it. His eyes swept over her again, looking at him so shyly, so uncertainly—and yet with a hunger in her eyes for him that he was sure she did not realise was blazing through her embarrassment. The hunger he recognised, for it mirrored his own. He started to lower his head to hers again. She looked so good, lying back against his pillows, even if the bedclothes were clutched up to her chin. He reached forward with a hand, meaning to draw them off her so that he could see her lovely, delicate body in the warm morning light. And more than see…