He was warm and hard and he felt like velvet and he let her explore him. Gian kissed her neck, and he kissed down her chest and when his mouth met her breast she wept inside.
‘Help me,’ she said, because he made her so frantic with desire and his warm hand was on her stomach, which made her want to lift her knees.
‘Does that help?’ he said, and she moaned as his hand moved down and he stroked her.
‘Not enough,’ she gasped. ‘God, Gian...’ And then she whimpered, for the soft vacuum of his mouth on her breast and the relentless pressure below created a feeling akin to both panic and bliss building inside her.
And though his intention had been to bring Ariana to the edge and then take her, instead he indulged in the pleasure of watching her orgasm build.
Her eyes opened to his for a moment, and she had never felt more bathed in attention, or so in tune with another person.
Then she gave up watching him and shut her eyes, arching her neck as she surrendered to the sumptuous pleasure he so easily gave. He kissed her then so slowly that it felt like a revival but then his thighs were between hers and his mouth was by her temple as her hands held his hips, holding him back, digging him in, both wanting and conflicted. She was desperate for fusion and for the initiation she would allow only Gian to give her.
It hurt, and yet it did not.
He squeezed into her tight space and it was both pleasure and a pain that must surely end. Yet her lungs were expanding and cracks of light returning to the blackout he had brought upon her, and everything multiplied as he moved slowly inside.
‘Gian.’ She said his name as she had wanted to since her interview. She rolled it on her tongue and tasted it as he moved deep inside her.
She felt crushed, she felt covered, she felt found. ‘Gian,’ Ariana said again, as he moved faster, but his name was more like a warning now, for he was tipping her towards the edge and she almost did not want to go.
For then they would end.
‘Let go,’ he told her. He could feel her slight panic and the mounting tension, and then when she shattered he shot into her in relief.
Both breathless, both dizzy, they lay there, catching their breath.
He adored her inexperience, not just because of the honour of being her first but because she could never know that, even while making love, he held back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY LAY THERE together in silence. Ariana examined her conscience and heart for regret and found none.
Not a jot.
For Gian, there was rare peace as he lay there, their limbs knotted together. Only one thing missing. ‘We need food.’
‘I have none,’ Ariana happily admitted. Her world had been turned upside down since the death of her father, and anyway she tended to eat out. ‘Well, I have some ice cream.’
‘Ice cream?’
‘A lot of ice cream!’ Making it was her hobby, her absolute guilty pleasure. Wearing a small wrap, she padded to the kitchen. There she defrosted two croissants and filled them with ice-cream in flavours of cardamom and pistachio and a dark chocolate one too while she waited for the mocha pot to boil and wondered how best to take back her heart.
How to accept his terms and conditions and somehow let him go with grace.
Gian lay there breathing in the scent of brewing coffee, trying to pinpoint the moment he had started wanting her.
On the day of her farcical interview, when he’d first noticed the true colour of her eyes? No, a more honest examination told him it had been before that, and even Ariana herself had voiced it: the night of the silver ball.
Or had it been when she’d swept into the planning meeting and said she wanted silver as a theme?
Instead of gritting his teeth, he had found himself smiling, at least on the inside, for Gian rarely showed how he truly felt.
But, no, while it might have started then, for Gian things had really changed the night she had worn silver. Rafael had not been there, and Gian had stood by Ariana’s side as she played host. He’d been in awe of how long she’d smiled with the guests and carried on with grace.
He’d wanted to take her aside and tell her that he knew how hard this was, and how proud of her he felt. Instead, they had danced their duty dance and he had held her back from him with rigid arms so she would not feel how turned on he was and how he had ached to drop a kiss on her mouth, on her bare shoulder.
And he was hard for her again.
‘Colazione!’ Ariana announced breakfast as she came into the room and blinked at his obvious arousal. ‘Good grief,’ she said. ‘I’m far too sore for that.’
‘Sore?’
She nodded. ‘Nicely sore, the best sore ever.’ Oh, God, she wanted him again, but then the ice cream would melt and her phone had already pinged in several messages. She had Nicki coming round and she had to do this without starting to cry. ‘Eat,’ she told him. ‘You can have the chocolate one.’
It sounded like she was making a concession, but Gian could tell when she was lying. ‘I want the other one.’
‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I’ll let you have the chocolate one.’
‘But I want the pistachio.’
‘And cardamom.’ Ariana sighed and handed the one she really wanted to him. ‘I put in extra when I made it.’
Gian, though used to breakfast in bed, was not used to this—just sitting in bed, eating and tasting food with a woman, and taking bites of each other’s.
Bites so big she nearly lost her
