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Like an adult who had just got back on a horse after years of abstinence, Sorcha tried to remember the moves which pleased most, and she wrapped her ankles around his back and writhed her hips.
For a moment he froze. He looked down at her and his eyes were black, almost...hostile.
"What? What is it, Cesare? '
'Oh, but you are...good, cara' he said unevenly. Very good. I thought you would be. ’
So why did it sound like an insult? And why did something alter from that moment? The pitch and intensity of his movements changed, and he drove into her like a man who had been starved of sex all his life. You and me both, she thought. And—even though she tried to fight it—she felt herself swept away by the longest and most powerful orgasm of her life.
She was still crying out helplessly against his shoulder when Cesare followed, with one final deep thrust which sent him spinning off into a place of unbearable sweetness. It seemed to take him a long time to return to earth.
After it was over he lay back against the bed, staring upwards at the ceiling of a bedroom that wasn't his, oddly shaken by what had just happened. But that was because he had waited so long, he told himself—and now that the wait was over the hunger and the passion would die a natural death.
He turned to look at Sorcha. Her bright hair was tumbled across his pillow and her skin was rose-pink. But her eyes were closed.
'Are you sleeping?' he questioned softly.
Behind the sanctuary of her closed lids, Sorcha composed herself before opening
them. Act like you don't care, she told herself. "No. ”
His eyes narrowed as he searched her face, but it was blank, like an unpainted canvas—as if she felt nothing. Yet how could that be? Even if she no longer had any great affection for him, he was experienced enough to know that her orgasm had been of the bone-melting variety. Cesare prided himself on giving a wo
man pleasure— indeed, it often inspired an almost slavish devotion in his lovers. Compliments were his due, and always effusive.
Always. But not, it seemed, from Sorcha. He traced a finger along her shoulder and she shivered. 'You liked that, cara'
Keep it real, she told herself. Protect yourself. He must know how good he is. 'It was...' Sorcha shrugged. 'It was okay.'
For a moment his face darkened. 'You mean you were faking it?" he demanded in disbelief.
Sorcha started laughing. 'I'm not that good an actress.' He relaxed. "Ah, I see—you are teasing me?' 'Aren't you used to being teased, then, Cesare?'
He pulled her closer. 'Not’ he said silkily, 'at moments like these.' Women tended to idolise him. His ego was vast, but it was not self-delusion which made him sometimes feel like a trophy—not when he knew that women sometimes boasted of having been his lover. Lately he had found the very obvious conquests a bore. He looked down at Sorcha's bright hair. Yet she had been the easiest conquest of all. Or had she? He felt a twist of inexplicable pain.
'You have had many other lovers?' he demanded.
She turned her face towards him and her green eyes were serious. 'Do you ask every woman that?'
'Of course I do not. But it is different with you. ' "Why? ' she whispered.
Because I wish I'd been the first. Because I cannot bear the thought of another man doing to you what I have just done, 'Just curiosity.'
'But it's none of your business, is it?' she asked sweetly. 'I haven't asked you how many women you've had.'
Cesare felt wrong-footed. 'That is different’ he said stubbornly.
'Another thing that's different? My, my, Cesare—where were you when women got the vote?"
He could feel a mixture of exasperation and frustration, because she still hadn’t answered his question. 'You were right,' he said suddenly. "We could never have been
married. For I could never have tolerated a woman with strong opinions such as yours, which often do not coincide with my own. ’
Then everything has turned out for the best, hasn't it? Of course if we'd married my opinions would have been different/ she said. 'Because you would have helped form them.'
'And you think that would have been such a terrible thing?' he demanded, even though deep-down he admired her independence of thought.
There was a pause. She knew that there was an easy answer to give—but what would be the point? This—whatever it was they had between them—was not destined to last, so why not be honest at least? "Well, yes—I do. Because then all I would have been was an extension of you—with no intellectual freedom of my own.'
