by Tara Pammi
“Second thoughts, cara?”
Neha shivered at the blatant hunger written over his features. At the dawning resolve in his eyes. At the unspoken challenge in every pore of his body. It wasn’t enough that she’d thrown herself at him, was it? He would strip her bare, of clothes and defenses, until there was not even a sliver of doubt that she’d walked into this with every sense alert, every cell desperate for it.
Leonardo Brunetti wasn’t a man who would give anything of himself without demanding everything in return.
“I’m more than ready to persuade you, like you did me. Unless you prefer the dark and a bed, then, we will walk back to my—”
Neha tugged the hem of her T-shirt up and over her head in a smooth movement that surprised the heck out of even her. The appearance of the lacy baby-pink bra and how it cupped her breasts, the way his eyes drank her in, pushed away the hesitation that came with baring her body to a man after a long time. To the man she’d always be attracted to on so many levels.
“I forgot there’s a reason you’ve held my interest for so many years, despite my every effort to suffocate it, sì? Dio en cielo, you’re sexy and bold and you will be the death of me, cara.”
Every word out of his mouth bucked up Neha a little more.
She didn’t wait for another order. In for a penny, in for a pound. Not that her heart wasn’t beating at a pace that might send it careening out of her chest. But Neha had never lacked for guts once she’d set her mind on a goal. Never lacked the gumption to see things through thoroughly.
While the media regularly published articles about how she’d gained weight or that her body type wasn’t currently in fashion, Neha had never let the criticism get to her. Thanks to her mum’s constant positive dialogue and praise when Neha had complained as a teenager that she was too big, everywhere, she’d developed a healthy appreciation for her body early on in her life.
Reaching her hand behind her, she undid the clasp of her bra. An expansive sigh drummed up her chest as her heavy breasts were freed from the metal underwires of her snug bra. Dark color streaked Leo’s cheeks as he watched the gentle bounce of her breasts.
Her spine straight, she threw her bra at his feet, reveling in the naked desire chasing away every other shadow from his face. The damp air currents swirling around the greenhouse kissed her nipples, making them rigid. Her skin was damp, and hot, and felt far too tight to contain her.
Holding his gaze, she kicked off her shoes. The smooth floor was surprisingly cold against her bare feet, a welcoming contrast to her overheated body. Then she peeled off her shorts and stepped out of them, standing in front of him in white lacy knickers. She’d never been more glad of her expensive lingerie habit—her one decadent indulgence.
He made a thorough inventory of her—as if he was determined to not miss an inch of everything she had bared. Her heart thudded so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear herself think.
“I’m glad you waited to take this chance with me, cara. I’m glad you decided I wasn’t worthy of you back then. That twenty-year-old, he was full of arrogance and ego and vigor. He didn’t have enough sense to appreciate—” his gaze touched her everywhere: her bare breasts, the firm and yet soft curve of her belly, her muscled thighs, the white lace barely covering her sex “—everything about you. He wouldn’t have known what to do with a bold, sensual creature like you. But me, now... I can appreciate everything you are. I can appreciate what a gift you are.”
And just like that, Neha knew she’d picked the right man to do this with. She mock frowned and licked her lips. His gaze zeroed in on the action. “Are you saying the thirty-six-year-old man has all the sense but lacks in vigor?”
A flash of white teeth against dark skin that gleamed with such masculine intent that some places in her body tightened and some loosened. He undid the rest of the buttons on his shirt and shrugged it off those broad shoulders. “Why ask questions when you’re about to try it, tesoro?”
Between one blink and the next, he was all over her, a violent storm of need and demand that pulled her in.
His mouth crushed hers, his arms were steel bands around her body and his hard thigh was lodged in between hers, almost lifting her up, rubbing exactly where she needed contact. She dug her nails into the bands of muscle in his back and rubbed herself shamelessly against the taut clench of his thighs.
“Cristo, you’re wet already,” he whispered, licking into her mouth just as eagerly as she clung to him.
The slide of his rough chest over her sensitized nipples was a sensation she’d remember to her dying breath. His hands seemed to be everywhere on her body and yet landed nowhere. Not for enough time. Not to her satisfaction.
His hands patted every inch of her back, his teeth tugging and his tongue licking at the hurt, and then moved to her chest. The graze of his callused fingers over her swollen nipples sent a needy moan rippling out of her mouth. Learning her, drawing on her body’s cues, he rolled the tight knots back and forth between his fingers, tightening the arrow of need concentrating in her lower belly.
Pleasure flew in rivulets up and down her body, there one second, fleeing to a new part of her the next, driving Neha to near madness.
When he bent her over the counter that he’d been leaning against and brought his mouth to her breast, Neha jerked at the wet warmth. He licked around the center begging for his attention in mind-numbing circles. Blew hot air, plumped and shaped and caressed the soft weight with such exquisite skill that Neha arched into his touch, begging for more and more. Again and again his clever fingers and his cleverer mouth ministered to her, noting her responses, driving her wild, waiting for the wet lash to reach the place where she needed it the most.
“I’ve had dreams of touching you like this. Cristo, I’ve brought myself to...”
He stopped when Neha jerked her head up, his words just as arousing as his caresses. “You what?” The thought of Leo taking pleasure in an image of her was like a hot cinder going off in her entire body.
Color streaked his cheeks and those thick lashes hid away his expression. She rubbed his lower lip with the pad of her thumb. “Show me,” she said, knowing that he’d always be a man of actions and not words. Never words. Even if every cell in her wanted to hear all the intimate things he’d thought of her through these years. “I’m in your hands, lover. Do whatever you want with me.”
“Sì?”
“Sì.”
“What do you want?” he asked, his hands never stopping in their exploration of her body. Cupping her buttocks, tracing the line of her spine, palming her breasts, nipping her lips. On and on and on, he kept the fever building in her.
“Your mouth, now, here,” she demanded boldly, cupping her breast and raising it up to his mouth like a prize.
His nostrils flared, primal male satisfaction in every carved angle. “Dio, only you could demand and yet somehow give, cara mia.”
She didn’t have enough brain cells left to figure out his cryptic remark. All she cared about was that he...
And then he was there. The cavern of his mouth was there, surrounding the hard tip of her nipple. Wet. Warm. Welcoming. First this breast and then its twin, until her nipples were gleaming with wetness and exquisitely sensitive even to his warm exhale.
He licked and stroked the nipple with a thousand lashes of his tongue, pressing up against it in such a cleverly wicked way that each swipe of it sent a current of need down to her sex. And then he closed his mouth around it, and he sucked in deep, drawing pulls that made her sex twitch with growing need.
“Dio, you’ll climax if I continue this,” he whispered against her neck, almost to himself. “You’re extra responsive here.” He tweaked a nipple and she felt an answering jolt in her pelvis.
Neha nodded, engulfed between ropes of sudden shyness and a desperate desire to climax.
Baring her body to a man she�
�d known for fifteen years hadn’t given her a moment’s doubt. But this intimate dialogue between them, the look in his eyes when he so thoroughly studied every inch of her damp skin, every rise and dip of her body, every jerk and twitch when he touched her somewhere new, as if he was cataloging it all away for future reference, this made a fragility she didn’t like fill her up. Fragility that would let fears in, that would make this moment into more than what it was right now—utterly perfect.
“Please, Leo.” She pulled at his hair, forcing him to lift his mouth from her tender nipples. “I need you...now.”
“Not yet, cara.” The sheer masculine arrogance in his tone scraped at her skin, winding the knot in her lower belly tighter. “Not until I have touched and kissed and learned every part of you.” His palm was on her belly now, inching lower and lower. The tips of his fingers played hide-and-seek with the flimsy seam of her knickers. In and out, in and out, covering more ground every time, stealing her breath on every dive inside.
“Not until I’m inside you and we’re moving together, sì?”
She shivered at the rough promise in his words. Drank in the sight of him—damp hair sticking to his forehead, muscles bunched tight in his shoulders, that hard chest breathing harshly as if he’d been running, greedily. “I think that’s setting the bar a little too high for the first time.”
“I like high bars—” a rough tangling of tongues and teeth “—and bold challenges issued by a bolder woman—” a wet lash against her turgid nipple “—and I want to be inside you when you come so hard that you’ll burst out of your skin.”
Neha jerked at the first touch of his fingers against the folds of her sex. Light and soft and oh, so gentle that she was ready to scream, he explored every inch of her. Drew a line around her opening with his finger and brought the wetness up to the bundle of nerves desperately waiting for his touch.
When he rubbed her there in a soft, mind-numbing circle, Neha cried out at the burst of fiery sensation. Heart in her throat, her breath coming in a harsh rhythm, she lifted her pelvis, chasing his clever fingers. He repeated the action, until she thought she would go mad with wanting.
Wanton, incoherent cries fell from her mouth. She was writhing under his careful, crafty caresses, begging him with her body. Reduced into nothing but a shivering, spiraling mass of sensation and pure pleasure.
Every stroke of his finger, every kiss he showered on her breasts, every breath he exhaled into her skin, every word out of that wicked mouth, drove her higher and higher until release was a shimmering mirage beckoning her fast. She gripped his wrist when he’d pulled away, her limbs honeyed, her entire being pressed down under a languorous weight. “I’m so close, please,” she said, and his husky laughter enveloped her in its embrace.
“No, not yet.” His smile was wicked, his rough tongue-and-teeth kiss purely possessive.
“I hate you,” she whispered, sweat dripping into her eyes, her body unwilling or unable to follow her brain’s simplest commands.
He pulled her up gently, as if she were a treasure he meant to hoard all for himself, his mouth curved into a dark smile, his eyes dilated, tension radiating in waves from his powerful body. Large hands clasped her chin, pulling her closer. He kissed her softly this time, less lust and desire and more...affection and connection. If her heart had ever been at risk, Neha knew it was then. His desire and his ultimatums and his possessiveness...she could handle all of those. His tenderness, however, would be the ruin of her.
“You trust me, don’t you, Neha?”
“Always, Leo.”
His face broke into a radiant smile that washed away any misgivings on her part. Washed away the frustration inside her limbs, flooding her with a renewed sense of wonder. She loved seeing him like this—demanding things of her—loved being with him in that moment, sharing this intimacy.
He tugged her with him, and she went without protest.
The lounger she’d noticed earlier came into her vision and dissolved like every other thought that didn’t concern her eyes when they could gorge on the supremely male specimen in front of her.
Any thoughts of even intrusive shyness disappeared as he undid his trousers. And his black silk boxers.
A soft gasp built up and out of her chest as her gaze lowered to where he couldn’t hide his desire. She could stare at him for the end of time and still not have enough. His thighs were thickly muscled, covered in hair, while his hips were leanly sharp planes, his skin lighter there than the rest of his body.
Neha licked her lips, her gaze once again going to his arousal, and a growl rumbled up from his chest. While she watched him, he hardened and lengthened. Her core dampened, as if in perfect answer.
“Come to me, cara,” he said in a wicked tone that promised to make every fantasy of hers come true. Flushing, Neha lifted her gaze to find him seated on the lounger, his long legs on one side, utterly confident in his nudity.
Neha went to him, her skin damp, every muscle shivering, her heart overflowing with the rightness of this moment. With the conviction that she was exactly where she wanted to be in the entire universe. Naked, wanton, with the one man she’d wanted all her adult life. Living her life purely, simply, fully, in the moment.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE CAME TO HIM, her lush breasts bobbing, her small waist and wide hips calling to be held, her strong thighs and shapely calves utterly feminine. Her light brown skin glinting like burnished gold with a damp sheen, her hair tumbling around her face in a messy tangle, her eyes filled with a deep hunger that mirrored his own. Plump brown nipples shone with the wetness from his mouth. He gripped the lounger on the sides of his thighs, his hands already missing the voluptuous dips and valleys of her waist and thighs.
Her underwear was a narrow, white lace thing that just covered her from him.
He felt painfully hard, desperate to possess this woman who challenged him every step of the way. Who met his desires with her own, who it seemed was determined to carve away a piece of him without asking but by simply giving and trusting and wanting.
Strength and sensuality roped together in an irresistible combination, she was unlike any woman he’d ever known.
Cristo, he’d always known Neha was a force to reckon with. Everything about her shouted incredible confidence and innate sensuality and a strength he found utterly arousing.
She’d knocked him over with her gutsy plan to build a life she wanted, she amazed him the way she’d looked at her own flaws and decided to change her life and now...now she matched him hunger to hunger, demanding boldly and giving everything in return. He had a feeling he’d never hold a woman like that ever again. That he would never forget tonight, whatever juncture life brought them to in later years.
And he wanted to make tonight unforgettable for her, too. Every time she laid eyes on him, he wanted her to remember tonight. If ever she went to another man after tonight, he wanted the memory of this encounter to be the one she measured it against and found lacking. He wanted to be the man she measured every other man against.
His gaze caught on the flash of a thin gold chain around her ankle, a detail he’d overlooked before. And he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to miss an inch of her gorgeous body, or her smile, or a nuance in those expressive eyes. He didn’t try to curb the urgency pounding his every muscle and instinct as she reached him. He knew it would be a useless attempt.
The scent of her hit his nostrils first—vanilla mingled with the smell of her skin, becoming a richer, deeper scent he would always remember when he stepped into the greenhouse. He spanned his hands around the sharp dip of her waist as she came closer, humbled again by the beauty and grace of the woman who was his match in every way. “You’re trembling,” he said, pressing openmouthed kisses to her soft belly.
“You’re the reason I’m shaking like a bloody leaf in a storm,” she said, her arms coming around his shoulders, her fingers
sinking into his hair. Her nails scraped at the nape of his neck and Leo’s body hardened between the slick rub of their bodies. Her voice caught on those words, a smoky quality to them, as if she’d ill-used her throat for a long time. “Make it better, Leo.”
Instead of giving her more promises, Leo showed her he would. Worshipped every square inch of her gorgeous body. Set his fingers, his mouth, to working her into a deeper fever, kissing every inch of her silky-smooth skin, palming the globes of her breasts, raking his nails down those turgid nipples, stroking and kneading every inch of her supple flesh. Giving her everything she’d dealt him a thousand times back. Driving her as mad with need as she was doing to him.
“Naked, now,” he said in a husky, demanding tone even he’d never heard before, pushing her away from him.
Dutifully, she stripped off her knickers, her brown eyes drugged with desire, her breaths coming in shallow and fast.
One hand on a hip, she stood before him, naked. And it was the honesty in her eyes that undid Leo.
She was the only woman in his entire life that aroused every primal instinct in him. That made him want to rumple her up and bend her to his will and also, in contrast, made him want to protect her with everything he had in him.
Pulling her to him, he filled his hands with her buttocks, dug his teeth into the tight flesh of her hip. When she jerked against him, he held her immobile with his arm around her. “Open your legs for me, bella.”
She did and he was dipping his fingers into her folds, reaching for that wet warmth that had welcomed him earlier. Merde, her damp heat drenched his fingers.
He cursed hard and long, every inch of him shaking with need. He pushed one finger and then two into her and she cried out and rubbed sinuously against his hand. Taunting him. Teasing him. Half mad with the same want, he smiled.
Dio, she was more than ready. And after so many years, Leonardo was ready. For whatever this was. Because he had no doubt that something was beginning tonight. Here, in this moment. Something he didn’t even fully understand.