‘I didn’t want to marry you,’ he said thickly. ‘But now I can’t think of anything I want more than what we are about to do. You are...uniquely beautiful.’
The words made her heart flutter; it felt weightless, without gravity, and she felt it might lift out of her body altogether.
‘I’m not.’ She shook her head.
‘You try to disguise your beauty,’ he corrected. ‘And I cannot understand why, when most women do everything they can to enhance what they have.’
For a moment pain lanced her. A pain so deep, so embedded, that it had always been a part of her.
‘It’s who I am,’ she said quietly.
‘I want to get to know who you are,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t want to marry you, but you’re my wife. And I’m glad.’
Her stomach churned and emotions ransacked her body, filling her heart with something new.
A sense of belonging.
He caught her hands and lifted them to his underpants. ‘Undress me.’
Her eyes flew to his; doubt and uncertainty warring with temptation. ‘I’ve never done this...’ she babbled.
He laughed softly. ‘I’m aware of that.’
She drew her brows together, her face a mask of doubt. ‘I thought educating virgins wasn’t your thing?’
‘Not just any virgin,’ he said in a gravelled tone. ‘You, Mrs Morelli.’
‘What if I’m not...? What if this isn’t...?’ She closed her eyes, forcing herself to think clearly and speak what was on her mind. ‘You told me you’re used to experienced lovers. What if I’m terrible in bed?’
That unfamiliar stroke of guilt slashed through him anew. He’d said that. In fact he’d said words to that effect several times. Why had he been such a bastard to her?
‘Tonight I want to show you what your body is capable of,’ he said thickly, pulling her closer and making her gasp when his arousal throbbed hard against her body.
He felt her knees tremble. Her eyes were huge in her face, all honey and caramel, awash with far too many thoughts and doubts. Doubts he’d put there. Doubts he wanted to remove one by one, kiss by kiss.
‘I’m scared,’ she said, with such simple honesty it broke his heart.
‘I know.’ He kissed the tip of her nose.
His tenderness made her heart swell. Her fingers moved of their own accord, pushing at his underwear, lowering it over the hard line of his erection and then down, over his thighs. He stepped back, moving out of his underwear as he guided her to the bed.
She fell backwards, but he didn’t immediately join her. Instead he reached into the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a foiled square.
‘Protection,’ he said with a half-smile.
‘Ah. No grandkids.’
She nodded, her wink reminding him of the first day they’d discussed this marriage. When she’d been so sure of herself. Sure that she was getting a convenient husband, a ticket to her university studies and to...freedom. The word lodged in his mind as incongruous, as it had done back then.
‘Not tonight.’ He grinned.
Their eyes met and the air sparked with something neither had ever felt before. Though Pietro had slept with more women than he could easily remember, he’d never taken a woman’s virginity. Even as a young man he had gravitated towards experienced lovers. This was new ground for them both.
How could he reassure her? Drive that doubt from her mind properly?
A strange sense of uncertainty ached in his gut. But she pushed up on her elbows and stared at him.
‘I want this,’ she said with soft confidence. ‘I don’t care what happens next. I want to feel this.’
He nodded and lowered himself onto the bed, kissing her slowly, sensually, marvelling at the feeling of flesh on flesh. Her naked breasts were flattened by his hair-roughened torso. His arousal was close to her—so close he could take her. The way she was trembling beneath him was a reaction to the newness of this, even as her eyes looked at him as though he was the air she needed to sustain life.
He dragged his mouth lower, rolling one of her nipples with his tongue while his hand slid down and splayed her legs wide, giving him more room, more access.
‘You tell me if you need time,’ he said thickly, not even sure the command made sense.
But she understood. She understood as though he’d spoken in a language made just for them.
She nodded and he lifted his head, one hand cupping her cheek as he kissed her hard. His tongue was passion and flame and she writhed beneath him, lifting her hips, searching for him, welcoming his invasion.
And God knew he wanted that too.
He pushed into her gently, gliding only his tip into her warm, tight core, giving her time to adjust to each incremental sensation as he filled her anew.
She moaned into his mouth as he moved, and all his control was required to stop himself taking her as he wanted to—hard and fast. He pulled out slowly, then pushed in deeper, before removing himself again. As he did so each time he took more and more of her and her muscles relaxed, welcoming him deeper, without restraint, without reserve, until he was pressing against the barrier of her innocence.
He kissed her, holding her tight as he thrust past it, removing it forever, imprinting himself on her as the first lover of her life. The first man who’d touched her like this.
Finally his whole length was sheathed by her, wrapped up in her, squeezed by her, and he paused, giving them both a moment to adjust to how it felt. He pushed his face higher so he could see her properly, could read her face. He saw wetness in her eyes and something turned in his gut.
‘You’re in pain.’
He moved to pull out of her but she shook her head and wrapped her legs around his waist.
‘No, no, it’s...’ She shook her head and her smile was tight. Self-conscious. ‘It’s fine.’
Perfect, she amended inwardly.
