‘Really?’
The thin morning light disappeared as his face came closer, but she refused to be moved by the brush of his lips and the softness of his mouth, just as he had refused to be moved by hers.
Except his kiss was more refined, more skilled, more measured and she found she could not quite catch her breath as her mouth fought not to relent.
‘Like kissing a screen?’ he checked.
‘Yes,’ she said, and felt the scratch of his chin drag on hers. As his fingers came to her jaw, his tongue slipped in, and she absolutely refused to moan at the bliss. In fact, she held her mouth slack as his tongue moved in and out. He tasted divine, all minty and fresh, but there was nothing clean about his kiss—it was filthy, in fact. Thorough, probing and potent with skill, his tongue felt like it ran a wire straight down between her legs and she bunched her hands into fists rather than reach for his head.
‘Still nothing?’ he checked, and now his hand was stroking her breast through her top and Ariana was sure that if she hadn’t been lying down she might have fainted.
‘Nothing,’ she lied.
‘Do you want me to stop?’
‘No.’
‘Do you understand it is just this once?’
‘Oh, stop with the lectures,’ she said, as his fingers slid inside her top. ‘I accept the terms and conditions...’
He laughed.
Gian actually laughed. Not that she saw it, for he was pulling her T-shirt over her head, and Ariana was loose limbed and compliant and letting him.
‘Please get naked,’ she said. ‘I want to see you.’
‘For a virgin, you certainly know how to provoke me,’ Gian commented as he rose from the bed and started to undress.
‘Because you provoke me,’ Ariana responded. She felt a blush spread across her chest as he removed his shirt and discarded his clothes.
Oh, God. She had always known he was stunning, but he looked so toned, and so male—his chest hair, the thick line on his stomach—and she was holding her breath in nervous, excited anticipation as he unzipped.
He was the most beautiful thing she had seen and she was far from shy, just staring with hungry eyes. It made her blood feel too heavy to move through her heart as he took her hand and closed it around his thick length.
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
