He lined himself up against her entrance and watched her face as he began to press into her.
She bit her lip.
He paused.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped. “It just so good.”
Her eyes were wet with some emotion between joy and intense need, her sheath slick and welcoming his intrusion with shivering arousal. She couldn’t touch enough of him—shoulders, chest, straining neck, the fine strands of his hair on his head.
He made a noise that was a mangled agreement and let his weight ease him deeper, sliding all the way in and coming down onto his elbow so he hovered over her. Her one leg was hooked high on his arm. His free hand tangled in her hair and his mouth covered hers.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and arched her back, signaling how eager she was for the feel of him moving over her. Within her.
He began to thrust.
It was mind-bendingly good. She brought her free leg up to wrap around his waist and felt his knees bracket her backside. He rocked them and pushed his arm under her lower back, lifting her hips so he could thrust more freely. With more power.
The new angle caused his next thrust to send a hot spear of intense pleasure through her, one that had her tearing her mouth from his to cry out with tormented joy.
His mouth went to her ear and he sucked on her lobe while their heat and energy built. Their lovemaking turned raw and primal, then. The room filled with their anguished grunts of growing tension and clawing need.
“I need you deeper. Harder,” she begged, pulling at his hair.
He caught her other leg and released his full strength, holding back nothing as he drove her higher and higher up the scales of what she could bear.
“Don’t stop,” she demanded. Pleaded. “Luca! Luca!”
“Let go. You’re killing me,” he growled, holding both of them trapped on a precipice with his rhythmic, powerful thrusts. “I won’t come until you do and I need to.”
His jagged voice pulled at her while his hard body shifted over her, his mouth taking hers. He surrounded her so fully, there was barely any place he didn’t touch. Didn’t claim. She was all his. At the mercy of his unconstrained sexual heat.
He slammed into her and rocked against her swollen, delirious flesh. The universe opened into an expansive void. For an infinite moment, they were suspended like stars in the universe, caught in the peak of supreme perfection for all eternity.
Then his tongue touched hers and reality folded in on itself. Orgasm struck like a hammer, and she was moaning against his own noises of supreme gratification while waves of culmination rolled over them, again and again.
Luca woke to the sound of the door locks releasing.
He kept his head buried in his pillow, willing himself to let her go.
“Just once” had turned into twice. Twice was not a slip of control. Twice was unabashed self-indulgence. He had deafened himself to his internal voices of caution and abandoned himself to sheer lust. It had been incredible.
And disturbing to realize he was so capable of immersing himself in base desire. He was not so far above his father as he liked to believe. He was just as capable of pursuing immediate gratification.
When sexual exhaustion had crept over them, he’d thrown himself into a hard nap so he wouldn’t have to face this reckoning—which was another facet of abandoned responsibility. On the few occasions when he had made a mistake, Luca always confronted and corrected it. He didn’t play denial games.
Sleeping with Amy was definitely a mistake. He’d known it even as her name had left his lips after their lunch. He should have let her walk away.
At least he was doing it now. She was making it easy for him by slipping away while she thought he was sleeping. He would make it easy for her by not trying to stop her, even though his shoulders twitched with the need to come up on his elbows. Wait, hovered unspoken on his lips.
What time was it? Beyond his lowered eyelids and the mound of the pillow, he had the sense that daylight was fading. He didn’t look. He held still with belated but ruthless control, waiting to hear the door close behind her.
The sound came from the wrong side of the room. The air moved. It tasted cool and carried the scent of the sea. He lifted his head and glanced toward the terrace.
The sight of her knocked his breath out of him.
Amy, bare-legged and shoeless, strawberry blonde hair streaked with gold wafting loosely down the back of his rippling shirt, was backlit by one of Vallia’s signature sunsets.
A trick of air and water currents beyond their west coast caused wispy clouds to gather on the horizon at the end of the day, providing a canvas for dying rays. As the air cooled, the sea calmed to reflect sharp, bright oranges that bled toward streaks of pink and purple while indigo crept in from the edges. Couples came from around the world to photograph their wedding against it.
Luca rose and was outside before he’d consciously thought to join her. He was drawn. That power she exerted without effort should have scared the hell out of him, but he was too enchanted by the expression on her face when he came alongside her.
She had moved to the northern end of the terrace and was looking back toward the castle ruins where the colors of the sunset were painting the gray stones bronze and red, throwing its cracks and crevices into dark relief.
He joined her and took in her profile with the same wonder she was sending toward the castle. Her mouth was soft, eyes lit with awe. Her creamy skin held the magical glow off the horizon.
“This is so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Me, either.” The compliment was meant
