by Dani Collins
His hands climbed her thigh again and she held her breath, imagination dancing toward “what if.” What if he touched her there?
“Cami.”
She barely heard him, his voice was so low. She dragged her eyes open and realized she had let her legs drift open. His hands were at the very top of her thigh, his thumbs tracing the leg of her bathing suit.
“I don’t want you to be embarrassed by the way you react to me.”
“Look at who we are. It’s so wrong.” It was true, yet she was turned inside out by the stillness of his hands, aching with longing because he was so near and yet so far.
“It’s not smart.” His arms gathered her to sit across his lap. She was so weak, she floated into place, entranced by the glow of desire in his eyes. “But it’s not wrong.”
She didn’t see a difference, but she stopped caring. She lifted her mouth and he covered her lips in a hot, unhurried kiss, one that made her feel as though she was drowning, but delirious at being swept away.
Her butt cheek pressed into—He was hard. Really hard.
On the rare occasions she had made out with a man, this was always what made her alarm bells go off. She always ended things before her date started thinking she wanted to go further than she did.
She and Dante had barely got started, though. Her one arm crooked alongside his rib cage, and the other hooked around his neck so she could twist her torso into facing him while they kissed. And kissed and kissed.
Oh, he knew how to kiss! Five o’clock shadow abraded her chin, but she couldn’t get enough of his lips. They were smooth and full, like an exotic fruit that was an aphrodisiac. The more she gorged on him, the more she wanted. She sought his tongue with her own, wanting that earthy contrast of textures, the deepening of intimacy.
She loved how he shaped her body, rocking her chest against his. She wiggled, encouraging the play of his fingers over her like he was a sculptor learning the shape of her spine, the curve of her backside, pausing to gently squeeze, then moving on, leaving a trail of inflamed desire in his wake. Her own hands splayed to stroke the supple skin across the cage of his ribs, the balls of his shoulders and the flex of his pecs.
Then, somehow—and she didn’t understand why she did it or where she got the courage—she found his shape through the thin fabric in his lap. Drawing back, she looked into his face as she delved beneath the tight elastic waistband and closed her fist over what felt like smooth, wet satin stretched over a column of hot marble.
His breaths grew ragged as she explored him.
With his lashes so low, she could barely read the avid hunger in his gaze. He skimmed his hand between her thighs and eased her bathing suit aside, baring her to the hot water and the sweeping stroke of the backs of his fingers.
It was delicate, a taste, not a meal. Need sensitized her and a sob of pleading left her.
He kissed her as he fondled with more purpose, parting and exploring, making her twitch under the onslaught of sharp sensations, wet and dangerous, intimate and sure.
“Move your hand,” he whispered against her lips, then covered her mouth in a deeper kiss.
She moaned a protest, wanting to keep touching him, but curled her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts to his chest.
He lifted his head enough to release a breath of laughter against her panting mouth. “I meant move your hand on me. Stroke me.”
Oh. What an idiot! She ducked her head into his neck, aware by the shake that went through him he was laughing at her.
He was also removing her bathing suit! All the skin that had been covered turned silky and alive. It was a rebirth of sorts, making her feel new. He left her suit on the edge of the tub as she slid her hand under the water again, finding him, feeling him pulse in her touch as she gripped him. Caressed and explored.
He did the same to her and she quickly lost the plot.
With a helpless groan, she threw back her head, offering her mouth. He smothered her with his kiss. Ravaged her. Slid a long finger inside her and rolled his thumb, causing her to fill the room with cries of acute pleasure as he took her over the edge.
Had she given him any pleasure at all? She made a belated effort to squeeze him, but he stopped her, arms going hard around her as he stood in a sluice of water.
She was hot and lethargic and so incredibly aroused. Naked as he skimmed his gaze over her, inventorying her pale skin and white scars, the pink nipples that stood up even in the sultry heat of the spa.
As he looked her over, insecurity edged in. All she could think was that the ache he’d left in her hadn’t been enough. She wanted a sharper stretch, a harder possession. She wanted him to make love to her. This man, the one who made her tremble. If he decided she didn’t measure up...
“Are you really a virgin?”
“Yes.” Was he going to call her a liar again? Reject her? She would die.
His nostrils flared. “Do you want to stay one?”
Stop? “No.”
“Good.” He carried her to his bed.
* * *
“We’ll get the blankets wet.” She started to sit up as he set her on the mattress.
He made a growling noise. “It doesn’t matter.” He stripped his microscopic suit and left it on the floor as he crawled over her, pressing her onto her back.
She tensed with nerves, hands going to his shoulders, not in protest, but caution. He was very intimidating, so big and muscled and hard. Like tensile steel beneath the press of her fingertips, but hot, so incredibly hot as he covered her wet, chilled skin with his own. They were both damp enough there was tack as he settled on her, sealing them together.
She had never been under the weight of another human, a man. Naked and trembling. She considered herself a strong woman, physically fit, but she was suddenly very aware of herself as small and slight. Vulnerable.
He could crush her. Hurt her. Break her in two.
He shifted his weight onto one elbow, heavy thigh pinning hers.
“When I saw this that first time, I wanted to kiss it,” he said with a light trace of his fingertip against her collarbone, where the healed skin was sensitive and the bone still tender to the touch. He touched his lips to her scar, and her eyes fluttered closed under a swell of deep emotion, chest expanding so she could hardly breath.
How was this even happening? He was like a sorcerer. Brute force wasn’t necessary. He cast a spell and overwhelmed her with her own sensuality. She was weak and conquered and she liked it. He didn’t trust her and she probably shouldn’t trust him, but as he nibbled his way up her neck, sending tingles through her nape, into her scalp and down to her nipples, she entrusted herself to him. Maybe the aggressive feel of his erection against her hip made her anxious, but it was the nervous excitement she had once experienced before a race. Anticipation of being wild and free.
Stroking her fingers through his damp hair, she brought his head up so they could kiss. She couldn’t get enough of his mouth, and he seemed to like hers. Hunger met hunger and she found herself arching into him, naked breasts swollen and hard, all of her wanting to convey her surrender. It was instinctual. Elemental. Mate with me.
His big hand cruised up her waist and gathered her breast, then he lifted his head to watch his thumb play across her taut nipple, keeping up the teasing even when she gasped and writhed at the intensity of the sensation. Streak after streak of wired sensations sent pulses into her loins. Then he dipped his head and drew on her so strongly she gave a keening cry. Sexual heat flooded through her, piercing her sex. Any droplets of water left on their bodies evaporated in a sizzle that was nearly audible.
She stroked him with her whole body, loving the feel of his skin against her palms and belly and inner thighs. As her legs opened, he settled into the space, slid down and pushed her legs farther apart. Claimed her with his mouth.
Waves of pleasure worked their way through her as he stroked her with his tongue, the onslaught making her quiver with tension. With agonized need. She lo
st all inhibition. Gave herself up to whatever he wanted to do to her. She belonged to him.
Just as her peak neared, he rose over her, making her gasp in agonized denial. A plea hovered on her lips, tightened her chest, but she couldn’t speak. His fierce eyes met hers, and she knew that he knew she was his. Utterly and completely. It was in the flare of his nostrils and the hard curl of satisfaction across his mouth.
But there was something else there. A glimmer of cynicism. He didn’t quite believe she was a virgin. It was this infernal response of hers, clouding his view of her.
Reservation should have struck. Maybe resentment or refusal, but perverse anger hit instead. Let him take her and see. That would show him. Then he would know, once and for all, that she wasn’t a liar.
Wouldn’t he?
Either way, he was doing it. Reaching a long arm to the night table to retrieve a condom. As she watched him roll it on, a very feminine hesitation rose in her. Was it going to hurt?
She was about to find out. He settled so he was poised to enter her. She studied his face, tense and flushed and severe. He pressed and she instinctively stiffened, tightening all over, fingers splaying on the searing plane of his chest.
“No?” His gaze flashed to hers, white-hot as lightning.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, agitated. “I’m nervous.” She made herself relax. Moved her hands to his sides, still wary.
He said something in Sicilian. His frown eased. He pressed a soft kiss on her lips and caressed where he was trying to invade. As a wash of pleasure returned in a sensual rush, she moaned and relaxed. He pressed into her.
It did hurt, but not a lot. A strong pinch and a determined stretch. A tremendous fullness. Incredible and incredibly intimate. He seemed to have a lot to offer. He propped himself on his elbows, fingers in her hair as he withdrew a fraction, then pressed in again. Each time she thought that was it, he did it again, sinking deeper each time.
She was shaking, thinking this wasn’t the dreamy romantic act she had always imagined, but very, very real. Everyone in the world did this, but it was the first time she was doing it, and it was more physical than she had expected. Carnal. Intense.
There was no hiding anything from him when connected to him this way. Her eyes might be closed, but she couldn’t hold back her small gasps. He had to know she was trembling, even though he shook, too, shoulder blades flexing under her hands.
She opened her eyes and saw his lips pulled back with strain. A muscle pulsed in his jaw, and his breath hissed through his teeth. Just as she thought she couldn’t take any more, he settled on her, belly to belly, fully seated inside her, and opened his eyes to look into hers.
“Bedduzza,” he breathed, thumb touching her temple. “Hurt?”
A tear had leaked out the corner of her eye.
“It’s just really... I didn’t expect it to be this—” Intimate? Important? “It’s overwhelming.” She was different now. He was her first lover, and she would remember forever that he looked so remote as he possessed her this way. Fierce to the point of frightening. Yet tender enough to kiss away her tear, leaving her feeling strangely divine.
“You’re killing me.” He eased her legs around his waist and sank a fraction deeper, then he cupped her jaw. She could feel the tension in his grip. The restraint. He said something else in Sicilian before he covered her mouth in a kiss. Sweet and lavish, but with a purpose. He wanted to incite her passion and did.
Soon she was responding, moaning into his mouth, thinking a kiss was so much more significant when bodies were joined. She could feel him pulsing inside her. It made her needy and frustrated. She sank back into that world of sensation he seemed custom made to deliver to her.
He began to move.
It hurt, but assuaged at the same time. She didn’t know what to do, but her body did. She undulated with him, finding the rhythm that fed the fire. They seemed as completely attuned to one another as they had been on the hill, meeting and parting, returning again and again to each other. Creatures of the earth doing earthly things.
As his tempo increased, so did her greed. Her arousal level. Somehow she was there again, ready to peak, clinging to him with every fiber of her being. Making agonized noises of acute pleasure while he moved faster and bit out something that could have been an order or a plea.
She couldn’t hang on any longer. She let go and plummeted into the abyss, falling apart even as he pulled her in with him. His hips thrust deep and his cries underscored hers as they clung through the paroxysm that exploded, then melted them into a heap of boneless flesh.
* * *
Dante lay on his back, forearm flung across his brow, distantly aware of noises in the bathroom, but his brain was barely functioning. He didn’t bother trying to discern what she was doing. He had managed to roll away long enough to remove the condom, noticed blood and handed her a tissue. She’d released a mortified gasp and retreated to the bathroom where she had left her things when she had undressed for the hot tub.
He stayed on the bed, sorry he’d hurt her, but wrung out by the best sex he’d ever had. His organ was still tingling. All of him was. His entire body was damned near singing like a choir.
He hadn’t even meant to kiss her. When he had ordered her to stay, he really had been thinking he only wanted to keep an eye on her. Go to the bank with her tomorrow. Unravel the Benito mystery.
Okay, maybe sex had been hovering in the back of his mind because they’d acknowledged the elephant. I don’t want to be attracted to you, either. Wanting her was a betrayal of himself, but fighting this attraction had proved to be beyond him. They were consenting adults, and he had thought she was as experienced as any millennial. He hadn’t believed her about being a virgin. Not really. Not when she responded like she’d made love a thousand times.
He’d been as gentle as he could, once he discovered how tight she was, only really believing she was new to the act when the deed was done. When she’d had him in a vice of pleasure so acute it bordered on painful and a tear was trickling from her eye.
That fragility of hers had been the only thing that kept him this side of savage while a storm of possessiveness engulfed him. Maybe the imposition of restraint had made the build that much greater, he didn’t know, but definitely he was affected by the knowledge he was the only man who’d ever enjoyed that passion of hers. Something truly base and barbaric wanted to be the only man who ever would. Their mutual release had been cataclysmic. Beyond his experience.
So good he already wanted to make love with her again.
So self-destructive. She was a lying, thieving Fagan.
Except she hadn’t lied about being a virgin. That meant he had to give a little more credence to her other claims. He absorbed that, disturbed. Suppose she had been paying him back in good faith. That meant there was a criminal making victims out of both of them.
She came out of the bathroom, footsteps heading toward the stairs.
He dropped his arm and saw she was wearing her miniskirt and droopy pullover. Did she have nothing else? He was sick of seeing her in that. He should take her shopping, as he would with any lover.
Is that what she was?
“Where are you going?”
She paused with her hand on the ball of the newel. Her teeth released her bottom lip into a small pout. Her brow crinkled with uncertainty. “To Sharma’s.”
An uncomfortable skip of alarm went through him along with his newfound possessiveness. His muscles tensed, ready to spring from the bed and drag her back there. “You’re staying here, with me.”
If he had any remaining doubts that she’d been a virgin, they were snuffed by her tortured profile as she looked away. He’d never witnessed such discomfort with post-lovemaking rituals. He always tried to keep things very friendly with his lovers, if casual. This wasn’t casual, though. He and Cami were inextricably linked by their past and now by a unique experience. Her first time.
An edgy uncertainty wound through him. How would she
remember this? How would he?
He would never forget her; that much he knew. The profoundness of this encounter was still hitting him, breaking down and rebuilding things inside him.
She kept her face averted, but he read her defensiveness. Underlying insecurity. Should he soothe and reassure? What message would that send?
As the silence protracted, she flinched and started down the stairs.
“Cami.” He came up on an elbow.
She paused. Her shoulders fell. “I can’t keep doing this, Dante.”
“Neither can I,” he lied, deliberately misunderstanding her. “You have done the impossible. Exhausted my libido.”
“I’m sure you say that to all the girls,” she shot back.
Ah. Now he understood. “You knew I wasn’t a virgin.” He curled his arm beneath his head and relaxed once more. “Frankly, you want your first experience to be with someone who knows the ropes.”
“But I didn’t expect it to be with a stranger. I barely know you! And I didn’t expect to feel so...” Her jaw firmed as she faced him with a hint of cynicism. “Well, I guess I’m not supposed to feel anything, am I? That’s how these things are supposed to work, aren’t they?”
Why that stung, he didn’t know. He came up on his elbow again.
“Come here.” He patted the edge of the mattress. When she hesitated, he said, “Do you need me to come get you?”
She tightened her mouth and warily came across to perch on the side of the bed.
“Did I hurt you?” That question was burning a hole in his brain.
“No.” She brushed at a fleck on her skirt. “I mean, a little. The normal amount, I suppose.” She shrugged, blushing. “I’m fine.”
He liked women, liked flirty ones who were sweetly perfumed, soft and indulgent of his needs. He liked to indulge them. Spoil them and pet them and enjoy the warmth of their bodies against his own.