Then silence.
I imagined him dressing, putting clothes back on that muscly body of his. The body I had felt over me last night and then ogled as he stood beside my bed.
My chest felt suddenly too tight. Had that only been last night? It seemed much longer ago. I fought for an even breath. It felt like I had been together with him much longer than twenty-four hours. I mean . . . I already knew his smell. How his hand loosely rested on the gear stick when he drove. I had the sight of it memorized. The olive-hued skin, the pattern of veins and sparse hair.
The door opened, but I held still, eyes closed, faking sleep. Faking. That word conjured up our earlier conversation. Every mortifying bit of it.
I can tell if a woman’s faking it or not.
Sure. He was confident. And he seemed a very capable man, but I knew the odds of him delivering an orgasm every single time to every woman he had ever been with was unlikely, if not impossible. The odds were simply against him.
He was at his suitcase. I held myself tight as a guitar string, listening to the slight rustling with seized breath. A few moments later, his side of the bed sank down with his weight and I managed not to scream even as hysteria bubbled up in my throat.
Oh God Oh God Oh God. I should have taken him up on his offer to take the floor. How could I be in bed with a man? I was a woman who eschewed all men, and with good reason. I now flourished on that platform—on being an independent woman who had come into her own only after she gave up on ever needing or wanting a man again.
He settled down beside me. True to our agreement, he stayed on the top of the bedding, and I felt the pull of the covers as he stretched out beside me.
It’s no big deal. You’ve slept next to plenty of men who never made a move on you. That was, in fact, customary practice.
I grimaced at that truth. The last six months of my marriage to Charlie, we did not touch at all. No sex. No kiss. No fingers brushing as we passed the salt. We were basically roommates, which was fine with him. He was fine with the state of our existence. If I hadn’t called it quits, we would probably still be married, still not kissing, touching . . . or fucking. Still just roommates.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the comforter until my knuckles ached. This felt very different from that. Sharing a bed with him would not be a casual thing. For starters, we weren’t married. Moretti and I weren’t stuck in a sexless rut.
This wasn’t a Sunday night where I watched reruns of the The Big Bang Theory as my ex snored next to me, drunk from pot roast and a pint of Mint Chocolate Chip. No. This was an entirely different situation from that. Big enough bed or not, I was achingly aware of Moretti beside me.
Sleeping with him would not be sleeping. I mean . . . maybe he could sleep.
I doubted I ever would.
Chapter Eight
“Are you awake?” I heard myself whisper.
He had been very still for the last couple hours, presumably asleep, but then he spoke, his deep voice quick to reply. As though he had been ready. Waiting.
“Do you want me to move to the floor?”
I ignored his question. It seemed we were well beyond that now. Secure in the darkness, I asked, “What’s your name? Your first name?”
It seemed a good thing to know—the name of the man with whom you were sharing a bed.
“Luca.”
“Luca,” I repeated, testing his name, seeing how it felt on my lips.
“Only a little bit Italian, huh?” he said, and I realized he was teasing.
I laughed nervously. “Yeah.”
“You should see Sunday dinner at my parents’ house. It’s an enormous Italian feast with my family. My parents and grandparents and sister and her family. She’s got five kids.”
“Wow,” I murmured, envisioning the bustling houseful that smelled of fragrant marinara sauce. The good kind you only smelled in a restaurant.
“Have you ever had zabaglione?”
I shook my head and then realized he might not be able to see the motion. “No.”
“It’s a fluffy custard. My mother infuses it with a little cognac.”
“It sounds delicious.” Suddenly I felt a stab of longing to taste what he was describing for myself. To live it. An Italian feast surrounded by Luca and all his family. That was a little much, of course. I definitely wasn’t looking for that. No. I was after something else.
“Did you mean what you said . . . Luca?”
Pause. There was just my heartbeat. The whoosh of my pulse in my ears. And all of my thoughts from the last couple hours spinning through me like a pinwheel.
“I always say what I mean.”
“About satisfying a woman every time. Is it true?”
“I haven’t any ego when it comes to that.”
I laced my fingers together across my middle, absorbing that. I licked my dry lips, moistening them. I’d decided I believed him—that he was not one to boast. Somehow I knew that.
Alone in the dark, I’d also decided that I didn’t have to be the expert on self-fulfillment. No one had to know what I did behind closed doors.
I drew in a deep breath. “You said you don’t have a family. What about a girlfriend?” That was important to know. It mattered before I continued.
“Do you think I’d be in this bed talking about orgasms with you if I had a girlfriend waiting for me somewhere?”
I shrugged one shoulder even as I realized he could not see the motion in the lightless room. “You’re working. It’s your job.”
He grunted at that and I didn’t know how to interpret the sound. “The way I’ve been talking to you and interacting with you . . . that’s not my job.” He sighed in the dark and in that exhalation of breath he sounded almost angry with himself.
His words served as a confirmation. They made this all seem so much more real. Not a thing I was imagining. Not a thing existing in my head alone.
Something was happening between us, and he knew it, too.
I sucked in a sharp breath and it shuddered out from my lips. “Prove it,” I whispered.
Silence.
Maybe I’d spoken too quietly. That meant I could take it back. I could pretend I’d said nothing. Pretend I had not just invited him to give me an orgasm.
But then his voice sliced through the night, filling the darkness between us. “What did you say?”
“Prove it.” I suppose I could backpedal from that, but did I really want to? I’d said the words for a reason. His conviction in his sexual prowess and ability to satisfy intrigued me. It was nothing more than that. Well . . . and he made me flush hot all over. There was that.
“For the sake of clarity, what does ‘proving it’ mean to you?”
“You’re the grand orgasm giver. You said you can make a woman come before you even got off.” I swallowed, staring blindly into darkness. “Well, prove it. Give me one.”
“An orgasm? You want me to make you come? Only you? Not me?” he clarified.
I winced. When he said it like that it seemed horribly one-sided. What was in this for him? “I’m sorry. I don’t imagine there is much appeal in that for you.” I released a nervous little laugh that died abruptly when the bed squeaked. He turned on his side, looming over me.
“Don’t be daft.” His hand found mine where it clutched the edge of the comforter. “I love a woman’s orgasm on my lips.” He seized the edge of the comforter and peeled it off my body.
Cool air caressed me.
“Oh my,” I breathed as his big body came up over me then, his knees between my thighs, bumping them apart, forcing my nightie to ride up my thighs and my hips.
He stilled. “Let’s be clear what you want from me, Ms. Mathers—”
“Vee—“
Hearing him address me so formally felt ridiculous.
“Let’s be clear on what you want, Vee. Say it one more time.”
Say it again? I didn’t think speech was possible. My heart was lodged somewhere in my throat. I’d have to settle for action. Act
ion was always more effective anyway.
I reached up until my fingers landed on his chest. He’d worn a shirt to bed tonight. It was probably to protect my sensibilities. The soft cotton was warm from his body and my fingertips brushed against it, back and forth.
My hand drifted upward, trailing over his shoulder and then sliding down his arm until I reached where his hand was splayed on the mattress beside me.
I took it. Wrapped my shaking fingers around his thick wrist and tugged until he lifted his hand up from the bed, letting me guide him.
And guide him I did. Directly to my panties. Just so there would be no confusion in what I was asking. In what I wanted.
It was bold of me, but I hadn’t been touched by another human, not intimately, in almost four years. And there was the darkness. Courage always found its way through the dark.
I turned his hand so that his fingers slid down the front arrow of my underwear, over my silk of my undies, right over my crotch. Covered up, blocked, shielded by the thin barrier of fabric, I moaned softly at the stroke of his fingers. Even if I was doing it. Even if I was controlling him. Every nerve in my body vibrated and sang its own aria.
“If you want me to do this, then let me,” his said in a voice rough as gravel. “Let me do this to you.”
I unfurled my fingers from his wrist. My arms fell limply at my sides in surrender.
His fingers remained there between my thighs.
I opened wider, inviting him to do that magical thing he professed to do. Inviting him to take me apart and unravel me. I shifted, wiggled, wondering how long until he started moving—
Welp. And there he went.
His fingers dove downward. Then back up against the seam of me. Then down again, exerting more and more pressure with each passing swipe.
OH MY GOD. This was what he was talking about. I was gasping under him. All kinds of undignified sounds escaped me. I couldn’t even compose myself and I supposed that was the point of coming apart. There was no dignity in it.
Suddenly he hooked his fingers around the edge of my underwear and yanked them to the side.
No barrier now. There was a rush of air and then his fingers were directly on me, rubbing against my wetness. I cried out at his first touch on my throbbing flesh, sliding against my folds.
“Oh, you’re soaking,” he growled, two fingers brushing over my clit. “Is this all for me?” His fingers pushed on, a single one dipping into my opening.
I bit my lip to stop from crying out and nodded jerkily. I swallowed back a sob, wrecked and splayed open before him and not caring. “Y-yes. It’s for you.”
His thumb moved up, brushing my swollen clit and I shuddered, my hands clenching at my sides, gripping fistfuls of comforter.
He pushed with his thumb, bearing down on my clit as his finger pressed just a fraction deeper inside me, curling up and stroking some unseen velvety sensitized patch of nerves.
It was enough. Enough to make me moan, shake, break.
Enough to push me right over the brink into orgasm.
He had not been bluffing or exaggerating. He was the giver of orgasms. As promised.
Panting, my chest rising and falling rapidly, I came back down to earth only to find his fingers still at work, skimming over me, brushing the entrance to my sex, drifting to softly circle my overly sensitive clit and give it a roll.
Then his hands vanished from between my legs.
I whimpered in disappointment, lifting my head from the bed. “What are you—”
He scooted down my body, disappearing between my legs. My head spun, dizzy with desire and bewilderment. Those hands returned then, closed around the sides of my panties at my hips, and yanked the scrap of fabric down my legs in one clean move. Freed, my legs dropped limply on the bed, where they were not left alone for long. He lifted one and draped it over his shoulder with a plop.
With a growl of satisfaction his mouth closed over me. Ohhh. He was doing that to me.
He devoured me. Licking with his hot tongue, nibbling with his teeth, turning to press open-mouthed kisses over the sensitive skin of my inner thighs before returning back to my sex.
Now I got it. Now I understood.
Cunnilingus had never been high on the list for any of my exes. It wasn’t something I thought I even liked. I certainly never missed it. But that’s the thing. You can’t miss what you don’t know.
And now I not only knew it, but I knew how it could be done . . . how I could be undone.
His mouth and grazing teeth become more insistent, more aggressive. I tossed and writhed against him. “Too much,” I panted.
“That’s it,” he growled against me, his tongue swiping and flaying my tender flesh. “When you feel like you can’t take it anymore, that’s when you’re right there.”
I screeched, one hand flying to grip his hair while his head pumped and worked between my thighs. I lost all restraint and rocked against that mouth of his, riding his face, driving and seeking my own pleasure like it was the only thing that existed. He worked me furiously, tasting me, sucking me, licking long and deep, making me come in a blinding rush (again) like he had promised he could.
I shuddered, shaking against his mouth, my entire body ravaged.
I flung my arm over my forehead and tried to steady my breathing. I took several deep, gulping breaths. He turned his face and pressed a lingering kiss to the inside of my thigh and that made me shiver.
I released a nervous laugh and glanced at the bedside clock. “It’s late.”
“I wasn’t sleeping anyway.” He lifted up from between my legs.
Because of me?
“So much for my theories,” I murmured because I had to say something. I had challenged him to prove his orgasm-giving abilities, after all.
“Happy to disprove.”
I frowned at that. He was happy to disprove me.
I wasn’t wrong about everything. Maybe the odd man like him could provide an orgasm (or two), but that didn’t mean I should keep one around. That didn’t change anything. I should only rely on myself for happiness and contentment. Expect nothing from anyone. Be an island. That’s the safe thing. The smart thing. I still believed in that, even if I did let a guy into my bed.
That didn’t mean I was ready to let a guy into my life.
Chapter Nine
The festival was a blur.
Even if I wasn’t still reeling from last night, and the fact that Moretti—er, Luca—had smashed all my theories with not one but two orgasms, it would have been an overwhelming experience. As it stood, I was reeling . . . and slightly itchy in my own skin. As though the shell of my body no longer quite fit me—as though I was a different person now.
Incredibly, I still throbbed between my legs. At first, I reasoned I was tender from last night’s activities. It had been well over four years since a man had touched me, after all. Soreness wasn’t an unlikely possibility.
Except the throbbing intensified when I thought about the things he did to me or if I looked up and caught sight of him or if he stood close enough for me to smell him or if I heard him speak. Gah. I thought I could get off from his voice alone.
It was beyond inconvenient. I was in trouble.
Last night had only whetted my taste for more. I felt like such a fraud. How could I even talk about my book at this event with him looking on and listening to my words? I could almost hear his laughter.
It was mortifying.
Staff members escorted me from one panel to another on the grounds and in the buildings of the local university that served as the venue.
Panels ran concurrently throughout the day, and festival attendees had their pick of whom they wanted to hear. Not that any single panel wasn’t well-attended. There were over a thousand in attendance. It was a book lover’s dream.
I sat on multiple panels with other featured authors. Moretti trailed behind me to each talk, keeping his distance, but lingering nearby while I spoke alongside others on daises that overlooked cr
owds.
After the previous night, my skin felt extra sensitive. Simply sitting in my chair and trying to concentrate on the questions being put to me was a challenge. I shifted in my seat, my jeans suddenly too tight, the friction of the denim against me too much to bear. I tugged my blazer closer at the front and that was a mistake, too. The fabric chafed my blouse and that chafed my breasts. Breasts he had not even touched and that seemed a travesty now. I heartily wished he had lavished some of his attention there. When I imagined that skilled mouth and tongue of his on my nipples, it made me squirm.
I had a brief break in the green room where lunch was provided to all authors and approved guests. Luca was never far from me through any of it. Even if my gaze didn’t seek out his figure like a heat-guided missile, he was hard to ignore. In the green room he stood in a corner, as unobtrusive as a man like him could be. Which wasn’t very. He was too big. Too hot. He commanded a room without having to do anything.
He was approached several times by staff and authors alike. I didn’t know what he said to put them off, but they always left him alone to continue his silent vigil. At one point a staff member forced a plate of food on him. He accepted, and I was glad to see him eat something.
After lunch, I continued on with more panels and signings. The day ended with a closing ceremony in a giant amphitheater and all the authors assembled on the stage for final remarks and a keynote speech. Luca stood in the wings, not far, never far, waiting for the event to end, his gaze a palpable touch. There was an after party, and I should have wanted to attend. I had thought I would. It was the sociable thing to do, but I did not feel inclined to mingle with a bunch of strangers as Luca stood by silently watching. Not engaging. Not a participant. I knew it was his job. I shouldn’t worry about his comfort. I shouldn’t care. Watching and not engaging was what he was paid to do.
But I did care.
“Do you want to return to the hotel to freshen up before the party?” he asked as I approached him.
I shook my head. “Not really.”
He frowned and angled his head thoughtfully. “Oh, did you want to go directly to the—”
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 20