His eyes, when they met hers, were brimming with emotion. He scanned her face and her pulse throbbed. “Thank you.” The words were deep, gravelled with so much more than he said.
Silence fell, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. It prickled with awareness and needs. Sitting so close to Fiero, Elodie couldn’t calm the raging torrent of desire that had flared to life inside of her. She’d felt it in the pool, even in the midst of his grief, and she felt it now.
She ran her finger over the pages of her book distractedly, her eyes unable to leave Fiero’s face.
“What happened with your parents?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They were in a car accident?”
“Oh, right.” She nodded slowly. “A truck veered onto the wrong side of the road. The driver had pulled an all-nighter. He fell asleep at the wheel. Mum and dad didn’t stand a chance.”
Fiero moved closer, his hand stroking her hair so her stomach swirled. “That must have been hard for you.”
She nodded. “Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” She grimaced. “Every morning for months, I woke up with a start, and for a few seconds, I thought I’d dreamed it. Have you ever had that? Where you’ve dreamed something really bad and in the morning it takes a moment to work out what’s real and what’s not?”
“Yes,” he agreed immediately, and she could have kicked herself, because undoubtedly the loss of his baby had caused that reaction for him. She moved closer on autopilot, and now her hand pressed to his knee comfortingly. His fingers continued to run through her hair and she liked this. She craved it – their closeness and interdependence.
“It was like that, except I didn’t get that flood of relief when you realise that you were, in fact, dreaming. It was the opposite. I replayed every minute of that day – the missed calls, the moment my secretary interrupted the meeting I was in, her sympathy as she told me a police officer wanted to speak to me, my utter disbelief as those words landed against me. The flight across the country, having to identify their bodies,” she shivered and now he closed the distance between them completely, his body warm where hers was ice cold. “Organising the funeral, packing up their house, wanting to talk to them and tell them how sorry I was, wanting to be with them, wanting to change everything. I just wanted to reach back through time and unplug everything and reboot it. Life is too fragile, Fiero.”
“Si.” A hoarse admission.
And it was fragile. Fragile, precious, with a horrifying lack of certainty. Nobody knows how long they have, there’s no guarantee. She looked into his eyes and she felt one thing and one thing only.
Need. Fierce and all-consuming, and all of the reasons she had for resisting it – and him – seemed to evaporate on a wave of want. Maybe Elodie was guilty of overthinking this? Maybe she was choosing the safe path because she didn’t want to get hurt, but really, she was hurting herself more by resisting Fiero.
When they made love, she felt it all the way through her soul. She felt more alive than at any other time. She felt whole in his arms.
With a groan, she pushed up, moving towards him as his hands reached for her. She straddled him on the sofa, her lips crushing his, her tongue invading his mouth, her hands pushing at his suit jacket with urgency.
He groaned, his own fingers digging into her hair, shaping around her scalp, holding her right where she was so he could plunder her mouth. She could feel the strength of his arousal through their clothes and need burst through her. She rolled her hips over him, whimpering as pleasure exploded through her, the promise of what was to come something she couldn’t and wouldn’t resist.
But his hands softened and he pulled his own head back, his eyes fierce and determined even as his cheeks were slashed with colour. “Elodie,” her name on his lips was a curse. “You’re sure you want this?”
She nodded, her fingers moving to his belt buckle, undoing it with urgency.
But he pressed a hand down, stilling her. “Elodie…You’re not thinking straight right now.”
Her heart turned over at his words, at his goodness and decency, at the fact he was trying to look out for her even when his body was so obviously as hungry for her as she was for him.
“I’m feeling straight,” she corrected. “I want you, and I don’t want to fight it anymore. Not right now. There’s so much sadness, so much loss, Fiero, and all I want to do is the only thing that makes me feel really, really good.”
He opened his mouth but she shook her head and pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t fight me. Don’t talk me out of it. Please just make love to me.”
His eyes hooked to hers and she nodded, then smiled, reaching for the hem of her shirt and lifting it slowly over her head.
“Please.” But the word fell around them unheard, he was already moving, lifting her as he stood, holding her body wrapped around his, his lips seeking hers, his stride long as he carried her to her room. He shouldered the door open and dropped her onto the bed with urgency. She scrambled into the middle, pushing at her clothes as she went, undressing hastily and reaching for him, her hands stripping him of his clothes with the same pace.
Her need – contained for days and long, lonely nights – was now bursting from her. She dragged hungry kisses along his collarbone, her teeth nipping at his flesh, tasting him, her tongue trailing lightly over him so he moaned and she felt the reverberations in his throat.
His hands on her body were insistent, stroking her arms first, finding her waist, holding her still so he could do his own inspection, his mouth homing in on her breasts first, his tongue tracing her nipples, swirling the flesh that surrounded her nipples before his teeth teased each point, and she moaned, low in her throat, because the pleasure was so excruciating and she was drowning on a tide of awareness.
“Please,” she whimpered, digging her nails into his shoulders. Only he wasn’t finished with his exploration of her body. He ran his tongue lower, over her flat belly, and at the caesarean scar, he traced the line with his tongue, so she felt as though he was worshiping her with his mouth.
His hands on her thighs were insistent but she parted her legs with the slightest urging, placing her feet flat on the bed, her knees bent towards the ceiling. His tongue flicked the silky flesh at the top of her thighs and she writhed against the bed, twisting as pleasure exploded inside of her. But his hands held her still, and completely captive, as his mouth moved to her sex, his tongue running the length of her seam, teasing her with the lightness of his touch before moving deeper, pleasuring her in a way that was almost unbearable. When she couldn’t take it any longer, he thrust a finger inside of her and she bucked her hips, crying his name again and again, wanting so much more. She was so close, riding high on a wave of utter, desperate delight, but relief was still so far away.
She whimpered and he growled something she couldn’t unders