‘“Fine” is a good starting point,’ he said darkly. ‘But it requires improvement.’
And then he moved quickly, his body thrusting into her and pulling out, each movement sparking an electrical current beneath her skin until she was almost out of breath. The assault on her senses was unlike anything she’d expected. Even when he’d touched her and brought her to orgasm it had been different from this. Now every nerve-ending in her body was twitching, as though he was stirring her from the inside out.
And he was, she realised, arching her back as the feelings began to overtake everything.
The galaxy was bright and hot and she was intimately aware of her part in it: like flotsam, bright and floating, powerless and yet powerful. A contradiction in her heart.
She dug her nails into his shoulders as wave after wave of pleasure swallowed her, devoured her, making her eyes leak hot tears she didn’t even feel. Only when he caught one with his tongue and traced it up her cheek did she realise she was crying—but she couldn’t stop.
She was incandescent, the explosion of her pleasure like a fire in her blood. He held her as she came, held her tight, reassured her, whispered to her in Italian, his words stirring her up more, hotter, faster. She clung to him as the tornado swirled around her, held him as though he alone could save her, and then she cried out, sweat beading on her brow as the storm broke.
Pleasure saturated the room, thickened her breath. She clung to him until the craziness slowed and she was once more herself.
But she was not herself. She’d never be herself again. She had shaved off pieces of her being and handed them to him, bound them into his soul and his flesh, uniting herself with him even if he didn’t want that.
She fell back onto the bed. The beauty of what they’d shared was incredible. Yet it was almost immediately eclipsed by a sense of guilt. Of self-doubt.
She’d just experienced the most unimaginable delight and he...he’d simply had a good workout.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, turning her face away and staring at one of the flickering candles. ‘I told you I wouldn’t be any good at this.’
‘Hey.’
He caught her face in his hand and turned her back to look at him, even though she couldn’t bear to see the pity and disappointment in his eyes.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ she muttered.
It was impossible to give voice to the embarrassment that was quickly usurping her delight. Uncertainty and inexperience were horrible accomplices, and they dogged her every thought.
‘Cara...’ He spoke quietly, bringing his mouth to her earlobe and pulling it between his teeth, wobbling the flesh and breathing warm air over her delicate pulse-points so that she shivered anew. ‘Do you feel this?’
He thrust into her again, deeper, harder, his body like a rock.
‘Yes, but you didn’t—’ She bit down on her lip.
His laugh was soft recrimination. ‘I did not finish because I didn’t want this to be over. Believe me, it is taking every ounce of my willpower not to.’
Her eyes clashed with his, trying to read truth in his statement.
‘You answer my needs perfectly,’ he promised.
She wasn’t sure she believed him, but then he began to move once more and she was lost to thought. She arched her back, her body held by his, and this time as he rocked her to new heights of awareness and fulfilment his mouth tormented her breasts, so there were fires raging in every part of her body.
She ran her fingers over him, wanting to touch and feel every inch of him, to enjoy his body as he was hers. And as she began to fall apart at the seams, a tumbling mess of sensation and feeling, a tangle of emotions, he kissed her, his mouth holding hers as he made her world shift once more.
Only this time he came with her.
Feeling him throb inside her, feeling his body racked by a pleasure he couldn’t control and knowing it was being with her that was doing that to him made an ancient feminine power rock her. She held him tight and kissed him back, her mouth moving over his as he lost control of himself, as though she felt he needed some kind of reassurance.
Later she would find that instinct absurd, but in that moment it filled her, made her desperate to comfort him somehow.
He swore in his own language, the harsh epithet filling her mouth and her soul.
‘You were worried I wouldn’t enjoy myself?’
He rolled away from her, pulling out of her and sitting up in one motion. His face was angled down towards her, his smile bemused.
‘How do you feel?’
Emmeline blinked up at him and stretched her body. She was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration and her nipples were taut; there was a red rash on the parts of her body his stubble had grazed, including her thighs, and at the top of her legs. She arched her back, tossing her arms over her head and stretching like a cat in the sunshine.
‘I feel...whole.’ She smiled and closed her eyes, her breathing soon deep and soporific.
He studied her for a moment, hearing the reality of what they’d done banging on a door in his mind—one he was going to ignore for as long as possible.
‘Tell me,’ he said thickly, running a finger over her abdomen up to the swell of her breast.
‘What?’ She flicked her gaze to him.
‘Explain to me why you haven’t done that before.’
‘Maybe I was waiting for you,’ she murmured, the words incongruous in their sweetness. She broke the spell by smiling teasingly. ‘Or maybe I just didn’t meet anyone who tempted me.’ She pushed up on one elbow, her eyes not shying away from his. ‘Is that so strange?’
‘Yes.’ He shook his head. ‘Yet it also makes sense.’
Her eyes dropped to the sheet between
