She clamped her eyelids shut, trying to avoid the sweeping memories of sharing the bed with Ian, of his touch, his quiet, commanding voice . . . his mastery over her body. Her skin prickled with remembered sensual memories. Even though she knew the sheets were freshly laundered, she imagined she smelled his scent when she pressed her nose to the pillowcase. She inhaled deeply and made a choking sound, not because she despised the fragrance.
Because she couldn’t bear living without it.
He heard the distant moan of misery, saw the movement beneath the bedclothes. He watched, rigid with attention, willing her with all his might to throw back the bedding. She did so with a muffled, frustrated cry.
His gaze traveled hungrily over long, smooth, gleaming limbs, breasts straining against clinging white cotton, pale, frantically moving hands. Dark gold hair tinted with red spilled across the white pillow in a lush, wanton display. Shapely thighs parted. His body quickened in an instant, arousal stabbing at him when her fingers slipped beneath her panties and rubbed. He didn’t hear it, but imagined the sigh through dark pink, beckoning lips: a silent siren call. She seemed eerily focused, wild in her mission, straining for release like she might a denied breath. She had tried this before, he sensed—again and again—never to be fulfilled.
Wretched, stunning woman.
The hand that wasn’t busy between her thighs moved feverishly over her body, cupping hip, ribs, and breast. She almost angrily shoved aside the fabric. He silently cursed the dim light, wishing to see the pale, firm flesh and large, mouthwatering pink crests more clearly, wanting to feel the soft skin slipping into his mouth, craving to draw on her until her cries filled his ears.
His hand now moved just as avidly as hers between his thighs. Was it his imagination, or had the hue of her cheeks deepened, the color of them a pale echo of her lush mouth and plump nipples? And was that the dampness of tears he saw glistening on the smooth surface? It was so hard to discern with the inadequate eye of technology.
So wild. So desperate. So beautiful.
She jerked down her panties in an inpatient gesture. He paused with his hand wrapped around his swollen cock at midstaff.
Jesus. What a pussy. The color of the hair between her thighs was a shade darker than that on her head. She spread her legs, and he hissed as he inhaled. He focused the camera in closer on the delicate, flushed folds of flesh, his anticipation sharpening. Her fingers burrowed between the sex lips. She parted her thighs wider, revealing pink, wet, succulent flesh. He moaned roughly when she pinched strenuously at a nipple, her clenched white teeth flashing in the dim light as she twisted her head on the pillow. She cried out, and this time, he heard the name.
He jerked in his chair, muttering a blistering curse.
She hated herself for what she was doing, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. She needed it—the sharp edge of arousal—even knowing how empty she would feel following the rush of pleasure, even knowing she would have to endure the inevitable emptiness.
“Ian,” she called, seeing clearly with her mind’s eye his handsome face rigid with lust as he looked down at her writhing beneath his hand. He stilled her for the pleasure, forcing her to take the stimulation in full, undiluted form, never allowing her to squirm in avoidance. He was always so ruthless in extracting bliss from her, always watching so hungrily as she relented to his hand and mouth and cock, seeming to drink in her bliss, as if her pleasure sustained his very existence.
Francesca muffled her cry of surprise, starting in shock when the brisk knock penetrated her thick arousal. Without thinking, she tossed the covers over the wanton display she made upon the bed. Had she locked the door?
“Francesca?” someone called.
Dazed by the interruption—by the fact that she’d so easily succumbed to desperate desire in Ian’s bed—she scurried out from under the covers, rushing across the suite like a guilty fugitive.
“Just a moment!” she called.
She had a confused image of herself in the mirror as she quickly washed her hands and donned a robe— rose-gold hair strewn everywhere, her cheeks pink, whether from embarrassment or arousal, she didn’t know. She tried to smooth the long, mussed tendrils before she hastened from the bathroom.
Gerard looked very tall standing in the shadowed hallway when she flung back the door. He was wearing nightwear—cotton pants, leather slippers, and a luxurious dark blue robe. She could see the wiry, dark brown hair at the open V at his chest.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” he said earnestly, his brows slanted in concern.
“It’s all right,” she said breathlessly. “Is something wrong?”
“No . . . I mean, I hope not.” He noticed her bewilderment. “I was getting ready for bed and my guilt over telling Mrs. Hanson to prepare this room for you overwhelmed me. I don’t mean to be insensitive,” he said, his mouth curving in wry apology, “but I often am, nevertheless. Or at least that’s what Joanna, my ex, used to say. I’m overly practical. This is the most luxurious suite, containing many of your personal belongings, and I felt like an intruder in it knowing you were going to stay here as well. I obviously missed the subtler issues at hand. Anne was quite irritated with me. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t worry about it. I’m fine,” she assured, her hushed voice automatically matching his.
“You’re sure?” She was touched by his obvious concern. “I haven’t yet gotten into bed. We could still switch rooms easily enough.”
She shook her head and attempted a smile. She felt cracked open by these unique circumstances, the very meat of her exposed to his concerned gaze. “No, really. I’m fine.”
He nodded once. “If you’re sure. I’ll let you get some rest then.” Her eyebrows went up when he hesitated. “You’d let me know? If there was anything I could do to help? Anything at all?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. She’d thought her performance had been quite good, but Gerard had obviously seen right through it.
“Of course. But like I said, I’m fine.”
“Ian always said you were very strong,” he said, his gaze drifting across her features.
“He always said that you were there for him,” she returned. “I can see what he meant now.”
He had a nice smile—easy and unaffected . . . appealing. “I’d hoped to make your acquaintance under more ideal circumstances. But I can’t say that I’m sorry to have finally met you. You’re everything Ian praised. Good night.”
“Good night,” she said quietly, shutting the door on his retreating back.
He studied every detail of her face as she succumbed to pleasure, enraptured by her expression of agonized ecstasy, aroused to the brink by her whimpers and sharp cries. He hastened to focus the view tighter on her eyes, and then replaced his hand on his aching, swollen cock. His fist pounded ruthlessly on the shaft, the rigid squeeze as he thrust upward over the swollen head making him shudder and groan harshly. He struggled not to blink as he ejaculated, semen shooting heedlessly onto his hand, wrist, and belly.
He didn’t want to miss even a fraction of a second of Francesca’s surrender.
She fell limp on the mattress, her knees curling up in a fetal position, panting, her damp fingers clutching at the sheet. It came upon her in a rush, as she knew it would. It always did following climax by her own hand, now that Ian was gone. Tonight her disgust at her weakness was sharper than usual, lying in his bed, replaying memories she knew she should let go. Her misery choked at her throat, seeming to rattle her heart in her chest, pierce the very core of her bones.
He’d awakened nerve, flesh, and soul, made her feel more alive than she’d ever been in her life, only to leave her alone, a human conflagration cursed to burn incessantly, without purpose . . . without any hope of peace.
