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“I’m fine,” she said awkwardly, pulling away from his gentle touch.
Carlo let out a sigh of frustration before reaching down and lifting Jane easily off the bar stool. He put her over his shoulder, barely registering her gasp of surprise.
“What are you doing?” She managed to ask, as he climbed the stairs to the second floor.
“Helping you sleep,” he responded with grim determination.
“I can walk, you know.”
Carlo didn’t answer. He moved up the next flight of stairs, and shouldered the door open to what had been their marital bedroom. He didn’t put her on her feet. Instead, he carried her across to the bed and lay her carefully down on top of the mattress. Before she could so much as sit up and ask what he was doing, he lay down beside her, and clamped an arm around her waist. He drew her backwards, snug to his frame, and held her tight.
Jane’s body was both energised and exhausted. She knew she should fight him. That she should push his hand away and walk out of their room, as she had done their marriage. But being back in the crook of his arm, staring out of his window at the Roman sprawl beneath, Jane was the happiest she’d been in forever. Since that birthday of hers, several years earlier, when they’d made a new life together.
So she didn’t fight it. She accepted that in that moment, she needed him. There would be a time to be strong. To resist the comfort that only he could provide.
And it was not yet that moment.
She let out a small husky breath of contentment and smiled. Her fingertips lifted up and curled around his warm, muscular forearm. “I’ve missed you,” she murmured, and closed her eyes. Finally, back where she belonged, sleep came easily.
At least, it did for Jane.
Carlo held her close, but he barely dared breathe. He could not do anything that might disturb her. He ran his hands lightly over her hair. She had always loved that.
It still smelled the same.
Like vanilla and citrus.
But the fragrance made him realise how much time had passed.
How much time they’d lost.
He kept her pressed against his body. When, in her sleep, she began to roll onto her back, he propped up on his elbow, so that he could stare down at her. And then, gently, he pressed his lips to hers. He had only meant to kiss to her. But when he began to pull away, Jane shook her head and dragged him back down. Her mouth was warm and moist; she kissed him desperately, and her nails ran down his shirtless back, scoring marks against his flesh.
Again, he tried to break the kiss but Jane pushed away the covers, and pulled for his body. With a brief flash of worry that he was taking advantage of their situation, he moved over her. And she lifted her hips, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him close to her feminine core.
Her fingers dropped to his shorts, and she pushed at them, groaning when they gave resistance at his knees. Carlo laughed softly in her ear and stepped out of them easily, so that he was completely naked. The moment was wonderful and terrifying. The moonlight still shone across the bed, dousing them in magic and a beat out of the normal fabric of time.
Her pyjamas made him smile. A simple white cotton nightgown, he remembered pulling them out of her wardrobe earlier that day. His hands pushed at the hem at the same time hers pulled. In unison, they lifted it higher, until it ruched around her flat stomach. Her briefs were sensible white cotton. Carlo disposed of them quickly, and then brought his mouth back to hers.
His kiss was loaded with desire and her body responded. She arched her back hungrily, and lifted her hips, swaying them against the hard planes of his body, inviting him to meet her pleasure.
He didn’t need to be asked. He was there with her, needing and wanting and knowing that the only answer to what they both felt was for them to come togethe
r.
Even in that moment, as besieged as he was by passion, he remembered the conversation they’d shared over dinner. Her worry about the consequences of their union earlier that day. He reached out blindly for his bedside table, and pulled a condom from the drawer. He protected them both instinctively and then took her in a fever of need.
He thrust into her once; deep and fast, and was rewarded by her immediate bucking. She lifted off the bed and cried out loudly, as her body began to tremble with pleasure. He ran his hands over her body, pausing as he cupped her breasts and teased the taught nipples. The nightgown, while lovely, was now frustrating him. He pushed it higher, and she lifted her head to ease it off altogether. He pitched it across the room and moved deeper into her, lowering his mouth and taking a nipple between his teeth at the same time.
She exclaimed sharply as waves of sensual power made her body convulse. She was weak. Weakened by her need for him. But she was strong, too. Stronger than she’d ever been. She wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him in as far as she could. He smiled against her breasts, and his hand tormented the other nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, so that her whole body broke out in goose bumps.
He knew every single inch of her. He knew what she liked. What made her moan softly into the night. But that was not what drove him now. Instinct alone pressed him into her; and instinct was responsible for the way his hands and mouth ran over her smooth skin.
He moved on intuition alone, and when she fell apart in his arms with a small cry of ecstasy, he gave into his hunger and chased after her. They clung together, as one, and the edges of their universe frayed and smudged beyond recognition.
Jane’s pale blue eyes stared up at him, and the silver of the moonlight bounced off her. She was an angel in his bed. He kissed her gently, terrified of breaking their contact in case it broke the moment.
But Jane smiled sweetly up at him, and lifted a hand to cup his face. “I have missed you,” she said again, and she shook her head slightly.
