‘What do you want?’ she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him.
Corso’s body was programmed to respond instantly to a question like that, and it did. He thought how quickly a woman could learn to be a coquette when a man had satisfied her, and he smiled as he trickled his fingers down over her breast and felt her nipple pucker. ‘That isn’t a very imaginative question,’ he chided. ‘I would have expected something better from you, Rosie.’
‘Don’t they say that people who have expectations are doomed to be disappointed?’
‘I promise that disappointment is something you’ll never experience when you’re in bed with me.’
‘That is so...’ Her eyelids fluttered to a close. ‘So...’
‘So what?’ he teased, his hand now moving down beyond her belly.
‘Egotistical,’ she managed, at last. ‘Corso! What...what are you doing?’
‘I think you know very well what I’m doing. I’m going to have sex with you again because last time was your first time and I feel it’s my duty to convince you that the pleasure you experienced wasn’t a fluke.’
‘You’re...you’re making it sound like some sort of power game,’ she whispered.
He didn’t answer. Just dipped his head down past her navel and a rush of carnal satisfaction flooded through him as his tongue found her moist bud. He made her come twice more—with his finger and with his mouth—but still he didn’t allow himself the luxury of his own release. He could feel the heightening of tension, the terrible aching at his groin, but still he resisted entering her until she was begging him to. As if he wanted to demonstrate to them both that he had clawed back that steely control which had kept him celibate all these years. That he was still in charge and always would be.
Briefly he relinquished his hold on her when at last he could bear it no more, and reached for a condom.
‘Corso?’ she questioned, and he could see she was looking at him with something like concern in her eyes. But he said nothing. He didn’t want any more analysis, or questions, or explanations. That had never been his way. He didn’t want to confront his own feelings, or to question hers. He wanted to be deep inside her and lose himself completely in her tight wet heat and only after that would he consider what happened next.
But when it was all over and he lay there, drained and satisfied, he was overcome by a sudden air of melancholy he couldn’t seem to shift. He turned on his side to study her and his heart missed a beat. One arm was splayed above her head in unconscious abandon and her head was pillowed on the pale silk of her hair. Oh, Rosie, he thought sadly, as he looked down at her sleeping face and the soft lashes which feathered her pink cheeks. Far better that you’d kicked me out last night and told me never to darken your door again.