He found her hand, kissed it gently. ‘You don’t need to thank me. I’m just pleased I could help. Because I didn’t help before, did I?’
‘You didn’t know about Oscar.’
‘I didn’t ask about Oscar. I didn’t do the right thing. And I’m so sorry for how I acted. I made a bad choice, so many bad choices that day. You made the only sensible one.’
‘It didn’t feel like it. It felt like I’d been torn in two.’
‘It killed me, leaving you. But I was stupid and stubborn.’
‘And now?’
‘Still stupid and stubborn but more open, more honest.’
‘So what are you thinking right now?’
His eyes fixed on her face, clear and gold like sunlight.
‘That I wanted you last night,’ he said huskily. ‘And when we kissed it felt so good, only then I panicked because I wanted so badly for it to be real. And I couldn’t handle the idea that it might not be for you.’
His raw admission made her head swim. ‘What if it was, if itisreal for me?’
His breath hitched audibly. ‘Then I would be very happy.’
‘Happy?’
She reached out and touched his stomach.
‘Just happy?’
His fingers moved to touch her face, the thumb pressing against her lips. ‘Thrilled. Delighted. Elated. Jubilant. Ecstatic—’
She leaned in and kissed him, and his hand moved to her neck, and he pulled her forward, his tongue pushing between her lips, taking his time.
‘Can we take our clothes off now?’ she whispered, and he laughed softly against her mouth and his hands joined hers, pulling at zips, fumbling with buttons and belts, both of them clumsy and inexpert with need.
And then they were naked.
She touched his scars and then dropped to her knees and traced their outline with her tongue.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he murmured, and he was pulling her to her feet, his knuckles sliding in between her thighs, grunting as he felt how wet she was.
He knew exactly where and how to touch her, soothing, teasing her, and she felt a heat sliding up over her belly, knotting and tangling inside her so that she squirmed against his hand, whimpering at the ache that was swelling and building inexorably.
‘Can you come inside me? Or is that too fast?’
But he was already pulling her towards the bed. ‘Here.’ He spun her away from him, and then he lifted her hands and pressed them around the post at the end of the bed. ‘Hold onto this.’
She felt her skin tighten as he kissed her throat, and his hands cupped her breasts, and she lost herself in his touch until suddenly she couldn’t stand it any more.
‘Ettore, please.’
His hand moved to push her forward, so that her arms were above her head, and she felt him angle up her hips and bottom and he was pushing in slowly, so slowly that she wanted to cry out with frustration.
And then he started to move, and at first the rhythm was wrong and then suddenly they were in time with each other, and he was holding her neck with one hand, sliding the other over her pubic bone to her clitoris.
Her fingers tightened around the post, and she could feel his movements getting larger and more out of control and her own pleasure was building. And then the swollen feeling inside her burst and she cried out as his mouth found hers and he anchored an arm around her waist and thrust inside her one last time.
Chapter Eight
