But he needed to know she wanted him – he had never used desire to manipulate a woman into bed. Desire left room for regret and he needed to know Alessia truly wanted this, that she was surrendering to her own needs and not his.
“But you want me anyway,” he demanded.
Her eyes lifted to his, sparking with flashes of anger and need. “What do you think?”
“Say it,” he insisted. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.” He dropped his mouth to her throat, running his lips over the flesh there, finding the frantic pulse point and flicking it with his tongue. She whimpered against him, the sound so erotic and full of desperation that his arousal strained painfully against the tightness of his pants.
“I want to feel –,”
“Si,” he prompted.
“I want you to make love to me,” she said, and then shook her head. “I want us to have sex.”
The correction should have pleased him – he wasn’t a fan of florid language and particularly when it came to descriptions of intimacy.
“Just tonight,” she clarified, her hands pulling his shirt from his waistband, her fingertips beginning their own exploration of his body, finding the ridges of his muscular abdomen and stroking them curiously. It was new – her touching him. Even in London, it had been so quick, driven by years of fantasising – he’d taken her virginity in such a hurried and urgent way. He’d been driven by a need to show her what her body could feel, but she had been too shy to explore his body. Her hands moved now, driven by their own hunger to atone, to learn and discover.
Just tonight. He ignored that. Sex was addictive. She couldn’t understand that, but she would. It was hard to scratch an itch once and leave it at that. It didn’t matter, anyway. She wanted this. He could ignore the pulling of guilt deep inside of him, a niggling sense that he was doing something wrong. He kissed her as he took a step forward, pushing her backwards, but she shook her head even as their lips melded, their tongues duelling.
“Not here.” She wrenched her face away, looking over her should
er at the bedroom she’d claimed as hers. “Not here,” she repeated, more urgently.
He didn’t argue, simply claimed her lips and spun her around, kissing her as he half-pushed, half-pulled her towards his own room. Their urgency overpowered them. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, her hands pushing at his clothes as his stripped hers from her body, freeing her from her bra, so her breasts tumbled out for his inspection and touch, so full and creamy. He dropped his mouth, seeking one nipple, flicking it with his tongue so she cried out, arching her back, her beautiful round belly drawing his attention next. It was an overwhelming sight.
His wife. His baby. Her body so altered by the pregnancy, so beautifully altered. Sex had never really equated to emotion with Massimo but only a man of stone would fail to feel at the sight of her like that. His hands fell to her belly, running over it slowly, worshipping her, it, and suddenly he was nervous!
“And this is safe?”
It brought a teasing smile to her lips, but urgency quickly subsumed it. “Perfectly.” Her hands curled around his biceps, pulling him back towards her. He kissed her hungrily, reassured, desperate, but this was all so different. He’d never made love to a pregnant woman before – their bodies fit together differently and in the back of his mind was a need to be gentle with her, to pleasure her slowly, rather than to simply take her with the desperate hunger that was driving through him.
He let his hands wander her body, finding the apex of curls at the top of her thighs, teasing her there so her eyes widened and her lips parted, and her breathing grew loud and fast, then he pushed a finger inside her warm, moist depths, swirling around to torment her tight muscles until she was calling his name out, pushing her hips upwards, desperate for more.
His smile was hidden by her body as he pressed his mouth to her womanhood, his tongue finding her most sensitive collection of nerves and flicking them until she was moaning his name over and over and over again, the syllables spilling from her lips as though without her consent, without her knowledge.
He felt her body tense, her legs lifting, her nails dragging against the fabric of his bed until she was writhing in ecstasy, kicking her feet, her pleasure exploding around them both. He pulled away, kissing his way over her stomach to the soft flesh beneath her breasts, bringing his arousal to her beautiful, warm opening. He savoured the moment, teasing himself now, pushing only the head of his tip into her, groaning as she lifted her hips to draw him deeper, hungry for him in a way that demanded satiation – they spoke this mutual language perfectly, each understanding the other’s needs without words.
He pushed a little deeper and her voice filled the room; deeper still and his joined hers. His hands caught hers, trapping her wrists at her sides, holding her still, and her eyes lifted to his with no ability to move anywhere else, watching him, locked to him as he moved deeper, burying himself in her sweetness, pushing into her and then pulling out, the torment of removal an agony he almost couldn’t bear, and then he was pushing into her again, faster, each movement driving them towards an inevitable, inexorable climax. He watched her as he moved, the movements of her breasts, the thrashing of her head, the parting of her lips with each sweet, tortured breath. He watched her eyes flutter closed as her pleasure began to spiral again, drawing him with it. God, but he wanted this to last forever and yet he needed his own release.
With the greatest willpower imaginable, he held off, bringing himself back from the brink even as her own release exploded around him, her muscles squeezing him tight, her eyes closed, her voice guttural. He watched her climax and drove her there again and again before finally losing himself to the power of what they were doing, tumbling over the cliff-face with her, their bodies melded, pleasure united and fierce, and nothing mattering in that moment more than what they were capable of giving to one another.
* * *
Her eyes were so heavy. She felt more exhausted than she knew possible, but it wasn’t from exertion. At least, not the kind of exertion she could explain. As a med student, she was used to long shifts and physically and mentally demanding work but this was different. Her body had felt the extremes of pleasure, pushing her over the edge and now all she wanted to do was sleep, to let that pleasure wash over her like a wave, filling her heart and dreams with memories.
Even as that temptation drew her in, panic flooded her veins. This was exactly what she’d told herself she couldn’t let happen! What the hell had she been thinking?
You weren’t thinking, her brain reminded her body acerbically. She hadn’t been. She pushed to standing even as exhaustion was making her eyes heavy. She looked towards him on autopilot and something inside of her clicked painfully.
She thought she’d loved him at one point – and for a long time. As a teenager, it had been a crush – Massimo had been so handsome, and so charming, it had been easy to think herself in love with him. As a twenty year old, it had been a delusion. But knowing those feelings weren’t real didn’t change the fact that for years she’d believed they were. And only an automaton would fail to feel something now, in the face of what they were doing – of what they’d just shared.
Those feelings made her react more harshly than was required. She looked around for her clothes, her cheeks heating at the sight of them discarded with his, tangled together as though they’d fused in some way with their removal. She ignored them, reaching for a blanket at the foot of his bed instead, wrapping it around her body like a toga.
What the heck could she say to him? What was the etiquette after what they’d just done? She suspected there was no well-worn path for her to follow.
“I’m…tired.”
“So?” he gestured to the bed, his eyes speculative, his features neutral – she suspected with great effort.