‘I’d love to, but it’s closed.’
Sebastiano palmed his phone. ‘Not to us.’
‘What are you doing?’ She pulled his arm downwards. ‘You can’t possibly think of trying to get it open.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s midnight and—’ She shook her head. ‘Could you?’
‘Of course. CE did the restoration work on the building a few years back. On top of that, we are key patrons.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘That’s great, but put your phone away. We don’t have to disturb the poor curator, or whoever would have to wake up to open the doors. We can see it tomorrow.’
Pocketing his phone, he turned to her, giving her a look she couldn’t mistake. ‘I might already have plans for tomorrow.’
‘Such as?’
Her soft whisper was like the sirens’ lure Odysseus would have warned his sailors to ignore. It heated his blood and called to that most primitive, that most male, part of him. The part that wanted to take her right here up against a stone bridge.
He sucked in a deep breath, misty air mixed with strains of Poppy. He slipped his arm around her waist and drew her closer. Her breath hitched and she whispered his name.
Another call. Another lure to his senses. He stared down at her beautiful upturned face, her flushed cheeks, her snow-damp hair.
His arms tightened around her, his nostrils flaring as he looked at her. ‘Such as plans to inspect an important work of art of my own.’
‘Really?’ Another breathy whisper that hung on his senses. She arched towards him just a little, her breasts rising between them as if seeking the palms of his hands. ‘What kind of art work?’
‘Mmm...’ Sebastiano leant close, inhaling her but not yet touching her; torturing them both. ‘It’s soft and curvy.’ He demonstrated with the sweep of his hands. ‘And it has these hidden valleys and wonderful peaks.’
Unable to help himself, he cupped one of those masterful peaks, moulding her in his hand, soaking in her soft moans of pleasure.
‘It sounds—wonderful.’ Her hands drifted over his arms and shoulders. Stroking. Petting. ‘I wouldn’t mind exploring myself.’
‘Oh, yes, dolce mia.’ He groaned. ‘I have much that you can explore.’
And then he kissed her. Deeply. Drawing tiny cries of pleasure from her throat, murmuring to her in Italian, urging her to give him more. To give him everything. Again a pesky voice in his head said, mine, and his body tightened with need.
‘Bastian, I want...’ Poppy widened her legs and he slid his thigh between them. ‘Oh yes, that. Right there.’
‘Yes, Poppy,’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘Tell me what you want. What you need.’
Because he didn’t know what he needed, apart from filling her body with his until he couldn’t think. Until this intense hunger to make her his drove out this feeling that something was missing from his life.
Missing?
His life was full. Complete. There was nothing missing. And yet he couldn’t deny the nagging sense that something definitely was.
Her?
The unbidden thought was almost enough to have him pulling back but then she moaned and twisted higher against him, her teeth grazing his jaw.
He should have shaved, he realised, so that he wouldn’t mark her pale skin. And as soon as the thought entered his head it was all he wanted to do: mark her. Fill her. Brand her.
‘Sebastiano, please...’
Uncaring as to where they were, Sebastiano firmed his hand over her bottom and urged their lower bodies together.
Minutes passed where all they did was kiss, tasting each other until he was so hard he was about to disgrace himself.