by Lucy Ellis
Up, up, up... He was the only man she’d ever kissed she’d had to reach up to. It was a completely different experience.
Yes, that was it—his height, and his build...the big, hard, masculine body she was sliding against which made him impossible for her to resist. It was the water that made everything far too slippery. She couldn’t help the circular motion of her hips against him, wordlessly encouraging the pulsing industrial-strength push of his erection against her rounded belly.
His hands were around her waist, under her sopping camisole, peeling it up. ‘Il seno bello,’ he growled, and Ava was suddenly hyper-aware of the heaviness of her breasts as her erogenous zones leapt into action.
One big hand cupped the underside of her left breast as he bent and sucked her nipple into his mouth through the wet cotton, rubbing it with his teeth until she was positively shaking. He did the same with the other, his hands pushing down her shorts, finding the bare curve of her behind and squeezing with a gratified groan of appreciation.
The water felt warm as it sprayed over her, his mouth was hot and slick wherever it strayed, and all she could do was hang on to him, stroking the hard, hot expanse of his shoulders and back, his chest, wishing she was better at this. It was as if she’d played all her life at local level and had then been recruited into the big league. She wove her fingers through his hair and brought his head up to hers again, kissed him as passionately and wantonly as she felt.
‘Are you protected?’ he asked her in Italian, his voice almost guttural.
Ava nodded vigorously, even as she kept kissing him.
‘Preservativo,’ he told her, his mouth moving away from hers, hot against her throat. ‘I’ve got condoms. I’ll use one if you’d prefer.’
She almost told him no, and then with a sort of terrible clarity she remembered. He was playboy of the western world. God knew how many other women he’d slept with just this month, let alone this year. It had been seven years since she’d last been in his arms. She’d been with Patrick very briefly—and he had always used condoms—and then Bernard, her plodding, safe relationship. Gianluca had probably worked his way through the adult female population of Italy...
Something pinched inside her chest and Ava felt her pulse begin to speed up—and not in a good way.
Don’t think about all that, the new, reckless Ava urged. Just go for it. Have your little frolic in the shower, enjoy what he has to offer, and move on with your life. Isn’t that what this is all about? Putting the past behind you, making things over in a better way...?
She pushed her hands against his chest. ‘I want you to wear a condom,’ she told him, making a space between them.
‘Si,’ he assured her, and then his tongue was in her mouth again.
She shoved at him. ‘No—go and do it now.’
He didn’t answer. He merely shut off the water flow, picked her up and carried her wet and dripping out into the bedroom.
He dumped her on the bed and dived for his toiletries bag. Ava sat up, pulling down her camisole. Her stomach only began to plummet when he tipped the bag onto the floor.
‘You don’t have condoms?’
Gianluca hissed out a breath between his teeth and met her accusatory gaze. He was so beautiful, aroused and predatory—everything she had fantasised about for so long...
It made her furious!
‘I cannot believe you of all people don’t have condoms!’
He was looking at her strangely. ‘Calm down, cara. I will make a phone call.’
Ava’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘Room service provides prophylactics?’
‘Why not?’
Aching in places she hadn’t ached for a very long time, Ava found herself scrambling to her knees.
‘Maybe this isn’t a good idea.’
Gianluca stilled. ‘What has changed?’
Ava crossed her arms over her breasts. She might as well be topless in the wet fabric, and suddenly everything didn’t seem so spur-of-the-moment any more. She felt exposed and wanted to hide away.
He looked incredible. He made her knees wobble, her heart shake, rattle and roll in her chest. She shook her head, knowing she had to be strong and resist.
She felt like bursting into tears.
What was wrong with her?
Without a word Gianluca strode to the wardrobe, yanked out a pair of jeans and shoved his legs into them, easing them over what ailed him. Then he grabbed a shirt, punching his arms through the sleeves.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’
‘Wait there.’
Ava scrambled off the bed, but in a single step, with an outstretched arm, he had her up against him—masculine, potent, dangerous. She trembled, but didn’t resist as he clasped her chin and planted a fierce kiss on her amazed mouth.
‘Wait,’ he said.
‘I’m not—’ she began, but he was gone.
She heard the main door slam.
She slumped on the bed for a full minute, just thinking about consequences, and what might happen tomorrow, and how if she didn’t have him inside her a part of her might shrivel up and die. But if she did she would have to give something else up. The memory of that shining night when she’d shared her soul with him. And that had meant something.
Because she was going to stuff this up.
Sex wasn’t something she was any good at. Patrick and Bernard had found her disappointing; it could only be catastrophic with a sex god like Gianluca. All her earlier feelings of being sexy and wanting something more had shrivelled down to a pile of self-doubt.
She briefly considered making a run for it, packing up her things and vanishing before he returned. But she’d been a coward once before, and how was she going to face him in Ragusa on Sunday if she ran now? No, she had started this, and she always saw things through. When he realised she was no good all this would just stop.
Wiping at her damp eyes, she stripped off her wet things and wrapped herself in her big white robe. She had barely covered up when the door banged open. Gianluca was framed in it, looking like every fantasy any red-blooded woman could have, and all the arguments she had assembled collapsed as he threw several boxes onto the bed.
‘Where did you get those from?’ Her tongue suddenly felt too big for her mouth.
‘Farmacia,’ he said.
‘You went into a chemist’s?’
‘Si.’ A slight smile edged his mouth. ‘Why aren’t you naked?’
She ignored that, even though her knees felt wobbly. ‘Are you planning on sleeping with a lot of women while you’re here?’
‘I think my time will be taken up with you, bella,’ he said, advancing on her.
‘But four boxes?’ She backed up and her bottom hit the wall. How had she ended up all the way over here?
‘I was in a hurry,’ he said, shrugging it off.
Ava’s fears, arguments and nonsensical reasoning dried up.
He hadn’t planned this. He hadn’t planned any of it! Wouldn’t a man with seduction on his mind have armed himself with the necessaries? Didn’t a guy like him come with a kit they handed out at Playboys Incorporated? All of her preconceptions were breaking down because this didn’t feel standard or routine. He wasn’t acting as if this meant nothing.
He’d gone out and found a chemist—like an ordinary person.
Ava saw the fierce urgency in his expression, the way he was watching her—like a lion eying a gazelle he was preparing to take down. It reminded her there was nothing ordinary about Gianluca Benedetti, and although they had been together before he was older now, a great deal had changed, and she had spent the last seven years learning how disappointing she was in bed.
Yet he’d brought back condoms. She felt as if he’d gone out and slain dragons for her.
‘What about your meetings?’ she asked on a deep swallow.
‘What meetings?’
He leaned over her, one arm caging her in as he pressed his hand to the wall above her shoulder, the other deftly dealing with the knotted
belt around her waist.
His fingers brushed against her bare belly as the robe fell open, circling her navel. Every sensible thought in her head flew out, probably never to be heard from again.
He drew his fingertips up through the valley between her breasts all the way to brush over her clavicle, then he gently nudged the robe over the curve of her shoulder until it fell a little way down her back, revealing her shoulder and most of one breast.
His eyes grew intent under that heavy fringe of lashes as he traced the edge of the robe on its descent to the outer rim of her nipple.
‘Are you sensitive here?’
Ava trembled as he rubbed softly over the puffy pink of her areola. ‘Y-yes.’
Why was he asking these questions? Why didn’t he just get on with it?
She watched him deftly nudge the cloth west and circle her nipple with his thumb. She gave a little start. She wanted him to use his teeth, like he had in the shower, suck on them hard, make the muscles of her inner thighs clench. She needed him to overwhelm her before she lost her nerve.
She didn’t have his confidence. She wasn’t very good in bed.
Yet his gentleness was what she wanted too. She hadn’t expected it, and she found she wanted it like her next breath.
God help her, it didn’t feel like seduction.
He pushed the robe off her other shoulder and it fell heavily to the floor. Ava hoped the dusky light would be kind to her. She was aware of him lightly fondling her breasts as he simply looked at her, as if memorising the fullness of their shape above the narrow span of her waist, the gentle curve of her belly below and the more dramatic rounding of her hips, the tiny dark brown curls guarding her secrets between the solidity of her thighs. Ava knew all of these things about herself. She also knew it was hard for her to be naked with someone and arousal was not an easy thing for her. Yet here she was, humming all over, with energy moving through her body like light, warming her, setting her aglow.
She forced herself to meet his gaze head-on and...
‘You are perfetto.’ His hands smoothed over her breasts, glided down her ribs to spread over the flare of her hips, and he brought her in so close she could feel the tremble in his body.
Okay. This was nice. He was looking at her as if she was a goddess and that just made her feel...
Good. It made her feel good. Strong. Female.
Except shouldn’t she be touching him too? She didn’t want to be accused of being cold.
Bernard had always complained about her lack of participation, but she would always get lost in her head, start making lists for the next day, and really it had begun and finished too fast for her to warm up.
She wouldn’t mind going a little faster right now, because she was feeling extremely warm at this point, no lists in her head. She rested her palms on his chest, her fingers tackling the few buttons he’d managed to do up, touching his chest lightly at first and then with more confidence. He felt so hard—springy flesh over steely muscle. She wasn’t used to muscle. She wasn’t used to feeling smaller, daintier, feminine.
He laid her down on the bed and, holding her hands on the mattress, began to kiss her. Long, slow, mind-blowing kisses, seducing her beyond reason with only his mouth, for the moment denying her his body.
She was aware of him pulling off the shirt, could feel his chest hair abrading her breasts, and she gave an involuntary gasp as his thumb ran over the seam of her sex, parting the folds, dipping inside. She stopped thinking.
Oh, God, everything about her was conspiring to make this easy for him. She gripped him around the neck. She didn’t want it to be easy. He didn’t deserve easy—not after what he’d done to her.
She felt him kiss the curve of her neck, murmur endearments in Italian, felt his big hands splay over her breasts, tugging at her nipples as he lifted his head to kiss her. The feel of his mouth was so compelling on hers—the slide of his tongue, hers joining his, in an echo of the feel of his fingers against her intimate flesh. He made a low, thrilling growl when she found the bare skin of his chest and tangled her fingers in his hair, dragged circles around his flat male nipples, pressed her mouth there and licked him.
He tasted like salt and male skin and Gianluca. The reason she knew the taste of him flew out of her head, but she did, and it made her crazy with want for him. She slid her hand down to unzip him, but he was doing it himself, shucking his jeans and moving over her with all the predatory grace of a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it.
Ava flexed her hand over the rigid length of him and watched as his beautiful features grew taut and pronounced. She circled the head with her thumb, wondering if she should be worried or happy about his size.
She needed to tell him she wasn’t always able to let go, that she might disappoint him. Tears built up in the back of her eyes and she blinked rapidly to stop them from falling. She didn’t want this to be a failure. She didn’t want to wreck it like she wrecked everything else.
Even as her anxieties drove through her thoughts like an express train her thighs fell open naturally to cradle him. But he wasn’t in a hurry. He smoothed her hair off her shoulder, fingered it as if the silky texture fascinated him, and then laid the gentlest kiss on the top of one breast, moving agonisingly slowly to her nipple, to the curve of her hip, her belly...
‘If you could just—’ she began.
He lifted his mouth momentarily. ‘If I could what, dolcezza?’ he asked, and rimmed her belly button with his tongue.
Ava’s stomach convulsed and she gripped the sheets. ‘It takes me a while,’ she asserted breathlessly, even as it occurred to her that it wasn’t taking her very long at all. She was throbbing like a heartbeat between her thighs. ‘There are certain things you need to do—ways I need to be touched—oh.’
He slid a finger inside her, and then another, and she closed her eyes, lost for a moment in the sensations.
He was speaking to her in Italian again as she shuddered under him.
‘Is that good?’
She recognised that bit of English amidst the Italian. ‘Good—yes. Oh, yes,’ Ava whimpered, and bit her lip as she tried not to cry out. More sensation streaked through her. But his other hand was stroking her face. He was dragging his thumb over her mouth until she was sucking on it, biting down on him as her lower body arched off the mattress.
‘Mia ragazza bella,’ he told her in a hushed rough voice. ‘Lasciarsi andare.’
‘Luca,’ she sobbed, and the moment before she cascaded into a million pieces of pleasure she had the satisfaction of seeing his watchful expression turn wild.
He was still watching her with fierce, glittering eyes as he positioned himself, powerfully male above her, and Ava could see the telltale tension in his body as he held himself back. She lifted her body in response, reaching up to push her fingers through his hair.
As he filled her his careful restraint was almost as erotic as the sensation of her tender tissues expanding to encompass him. He watched her the whole time.
‘Luca...’ she breathed as he sank deep.
‘Good, my sweet Ava?’
Her emotions did a figure-eight in her chest, tying her up in knots.
He pushed and their hips locked.
He said something in Italian, in such a way that she knew this was as good for him as it was for her. Perhaps better. His body tremored with the strain of holding back and she smoothed her palms over his hair-roughened chest, wanting the intimacy of this to be preserved in her memory.
For a moment everything seemed to slow down. It’s not your first time. A faint voice rippled through her senses. Your body remembers him. You remember him...
‘Now,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Luca, now.’
Her hips lifted of their own accord as he began to move deeper. His eyes didn’t leave hers and he wasn’t asking her if it was good this time. He was driving her to where they both wanted to be and she found she didn’t have to think about his rhythm. Her body took it up like a drumbeat.
Oh, God. I feel like I was born to do this with this man.
Having him inside her, she could feel herself building towards the impossible, rarely ever more than a faint echo for her before, but becoming stronger and stronger, pulsing through her nerve endings as he bore down upon her. God, this never happened to her. But it was happening. She dug her nails into his back as if she’d never let go, as sensation exploded in long, pulsating ribbons of intense pleasure that went on and on. He thrust again, once more, and gave up his release with a deep groan of satisfaction before slowly, heavily, he came down on top of her.
Ava could feel his heartbeat pounding against hers. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, smoothing his hand along her thigh, stroking her as they both still trembled with the force of what had happened in this bed. Ava was all too aware that he was still pulsing inside her, and she was experiencing sweet aftershocks.
She buried her face in his shoulder, feeling hot and sweaty and shuddery, definitely not in control.
‘Mia bella, Ava,’ he said hoarsely.
His beautiful Ava.
And she was.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NOW WHAT?
The questions started the minute he left the bed.
Ava’s eyes went a little round and glassy as she watched him move from the bed to the bathroom, his easy steps sending the musculature of his body into a stretching, look-at-me-and-learn rhythm of bunching and contraction. His naked body was truly a masterpiece of the male form.
The empty expanse of mattress stretched out around her. Instinctively she pulled the rumpled quilt over her naked body, wondering how to dial down this overwhelming need for him to hold her.
In his arms she stopped thinking, she just felt—and God knew she hadn’t felt this good in years.
He’d given her the holy grail of sexual joy—an orgasm during sex.
Not one, Ava, but two—maybe it was three.
Was that it? Was that why she was feeling so...emotional? Because that was how she was feeling—soft and clingy and a little bit weepy.
Clearly she was a lunatic!