shatter the spell. He caught a whiff of her scent, of her hair. Her body.
“I see you couldn’t sleep, either,” she said.
“I never even tried.”
His fingers unfurled when she put her hand on the snifter he held. She set it on the table.
“I’m not doing this because I forgive you,” she said, her large doe eyes gleaming in the firelight, her voice a smoky caress against his roughened skin.
“I never expected forgiveness.”
“Maybe that’s why you haven’t apologized.”
He watched, enthralled as she shrugged off the robe and let it drop heedlessly to the floor. She was naked beneath it, her skin a pale gold in the firelight. For a moment, she just stood there, studying his face as he worshipped her beauty.
“Have you been with others? Since you left me?”
He looked up at her question, meeting her stare full on without reluctance.
“No.”
For a moment, her gaze moved over his face. Then she straddled him and settled, her weight in his lap making his lungs burn. He inhaled sharply, realizing he’d been holding his breath, and her scent fully pervaded his awareness: the achingly familiar scent of her perfume, her skin . . . her arousal.
He closed his eyes when she encircled his neck with her arms, buried her face against his neck and shoulder, pressed her lips to his neck and ground her pussy against his cock, her actions single-minded . . . electrical. Need clawed at him from inside, the pain of it impossible to control. His hands absorbed the softness of her skin. For a second, he just sat there, rigid, an animal straining silently—furiously—at fraying bonds. She shifted. Desire ripped through flesh and bone, exploding to the surface. His fingers furrowed in the hair at her nape. He clutched and pulled, forcing her head back, exposing her white throat and lush, parted lips.
He kissed her. It was like going from cruel impoverishment to indecent wealth in five seconds flat.
For an indeterminable length of time, he ravished her, unable to get enough of her singular taste and soft moans, becoming fevered by the fire he felt rising beneath the surface of her skin and penetrating from her pussy to his cock. He molded her curving hips to his palms, the once familiar, erotic fit maddening him. He used his hold to ground her down in his lap, their harsh moans mingling in their fused mouths.
“No,” she said harshly when he began to move her off his lap in order to lay her on the couch. He was consumed by the idea of taking her, fusing with her, perhaps afraid that if he waited too long, this unlikely moment would pass. He saw the glint of determination in her firelit, dewy eyes. “I will stay on top.”
For a moment, he didn’t move, absorbing her meaning. His nostrils flared as a flash of . . . not anger, precisely, but frustration went through him. They had made love countless times, but never with Francesca in the position of control. But still . . . he understood her point.
He had lost her trust. She would fight against surrendering control again. He must tread carefully, or she would flee.
“All right,” he said quietly.
There was a trace of defiance in her expression as she held his stare and scooted back on his thighs. They both unfastened his pants, their movements increasingly frantic. Ian grew hastier when she left the mechanics to him and cupped her hand around his cock through the fabric of his pants, making jacking motions up and down the shaft.
He hissed at the sensation of her hand enclosing the naked skin a moment later. She rose over him. The sensation of her wet, clinging flesh gloving the tip of his cock was divine, the feeling of burrowing into her warm, tight body sacred. Once she sat in his lap, and he struggled to reaccustom himself to the nirvana of being buried in her, she cupped his head in her hands, her thumbs caressing his face.
“You still want me.”
He blinked, shock penetrating his lust at her fiercely uttered words.
“Do you think I ever stopped?” he demanded through a clenched jaw incredulously. “Do you think I ever
She shook her head and he saw a tear glistening on her cheek. “I don’t know what I think, except I hate you for making me do this.” He felt her shudder all the way at the core of her body where he was lodged. “I hate you for making me need you so much that I’d lower myself to this.”
“You have never once lowered yourself,” he rasped, grabbing her hips, his fingers sinking into firm buttocks, moving her. She gasped and clamped her eyes closed. “Look at me,” he said harshly. She reluctantly opened her eyes. “You have only raised me. I know I don’t deserve you, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t burn for you. That I didn’t. Every minute of every day.”
She moaned and placed her hands on his shoulders. Despite meeting his stare for a moment, she kept her eyes closed as she began to fuck him, the tight, fluid roll of her hips leaving him gasping. She hopped in his lap, breasts bouncing, clearly needing the frantic joining he also craved. Their flesh beat together quicker and quicker. He studied her face in the firelight, sensing her wild desperation.
He tightened his hold on her hips and stilled her in his lap. Her eyelids blinked open heavily. He held her stare as he put his hand between her thighs.
“No,” she whispered, even though she bucked her hips forward, bumping her damp outer tissues against his knuckles as his finger burrowed between her labia.
“I don’t like to see you suffering,” he murmured. “You need to come. You need relief.”
He placed one hand at the base of her spine, his other between her humid thighs. He flicked and pressed her clit with the ridge of his forefinger, slightly pressing her body against the pressure from the back in order to increase her pleasure. He watched with a tight focus as every muscle in her sleek body tightened. He saw the flush on her chest and cheeks deepen, felt her slight tremors as she crested.
Her cry as she succumbed struck him as poignant. Sad. So beautiful it hurt. He nursed her through her climax, his cock throbbing in her convulsing vagina. It was too much to bear, but he forced himself to exist in the flames, not wanting the moment to end.
He couldn’t survive that way forever, though. No man could. He leaned forward slightly at the same moment he pushed her back, so that her upper body was bent back between his spread thighs at an upward angle, her hair falling behind her, her weight supported by his spread hands on her back. He began to fuck her in that position, using his pumping arms to control the motion. His gaze moved hungrily over her perspiration-glazed, naked torso, her beautiful breasts trembling every time he thrust high into her, a tiny cry popping out of her throat as they slammed together.
He slid one hand up her back to her shoulder, using his hold to support her better and to optimize the thrusts of her pussy down on his cock. His groans twined with the muted keening sound she made. The friction was intense. Optimal. His flexed biceps felt like they’d pop out of his skin, he abused them so hard, never letting up an ounce on the tension, but he didn’t care. The pleasure far outstripped the discomfort.
Desire rode him like a slashing rider, but he grimaced when he saw she’d closed her eyes again, blocking herself from him. He realized too late that instinct had taken hold. He was controlling their lovemaking, fucking her ruthlessly.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, the fist of passion gripping at his throat, making him sound strangled. He
She clamped her eyes tighter and shook her head. A moment later, he felt a rush of heat around him. She was coming. He plunged her down on him and flexed his hips, sinking his cock to the hilt.
He let heaven fall. It crashed down like knives, spikes of pleasure ripping through him.
He pulled her against him while he still ejaculated inside her, hugging her to him desperately, breathing the scent of her release, moving her sweet body over him in a sublime dance he dreaded coming to an end.
She kept her eyes closed as she panted with her face pressed against his neck, filling herself with his scent. She wondered dazedly if she was trying to blind herself to the vision of him, or if she was childishly shutting her eyes in an attempt to hide her own treachery from herself. His hands moved, stroking her sides and back, his touch somehow soothing her and making misery rise at once. When mounting confusion and shame reached her
