So she held his serious gaze. She could not to be afraid of mistakes now, not when she’d already made so many. It would be worse to hide and stand still. “Then it will always be you.”
Something flared in his gaze. She wasn’t sure she’d understand that emotion even if she was experienced. But he shrugged out of his shirt, revealing the impressive musculature of his arms. She had known he was strong. An impressive form of man, but she had not realized how deep that went.
He divested himself of his pants, all while she watched. And while she had read about all sorts of romantic encounters, she had no real-life scenario to compare this to. Nerves fluttered, but they weren’t the kind made from worry. It was something else. Something akin to hope.
And then he pushed his boxers down, revealing the impressive hard length of him. She hated to be a cliché, but she simply did not know how that was truly meant to fit inside of her. She nearly laughed at the foolishness of the thought, but she was breathing too hard to laugh. Heated and pulsing too much to do anything butwatch.
He pulled something out of the drawer, and she realized dimly that he must have more brain cells left than she did. He opened the condom package and rolled it on, watching her the entire time. She did not know if this was really considered an intimate act, or part of it, but she supposed it only mattered what they wanted it to be. And she could scarcely look away. It was all so new, so enticing.
To have a man move atop her, glare down at her. Hard and surely aching as much as she was. He wouldn’t be doing this otherwise. Not like this.
“It may hurt,” he said, his voice sounding like it was being scraped out of a closed throat.
“What a shocking revelation. I have no concept of how sex works despite my twenty-six years on this planet. Please explain it to me, Luciano.” She felt him tense every time she uttered his name, so she drew it out syllable by syllable, hoping she might hear him growl again.
He made a low sound of amusement instead, but it rumbled through her all the same. Because the hard, dangerous length of him was positioned at her entrance.
Nerves fluttered around her heart, but they were the anticipatory kind. That breathless feeling before jumping into the unknown. It felt like power. A choice.Herchoice. Everythingshewanted.
It didn’t so muchhurtas feel impossible as he moved into her, slow and determined. A deep, uncomfortable stretching, but it was buffeted by so many wonderful sensations it was impossible to focus on that discomfort. Especially when she moved and he growled.
He liked it, she realized. Pleasure gave pleasure, and the more she relaxed into that, the less she felt as if it simply wasn’t physically possible to enjoy the feel of being so stretched, so invaded.
But it wasn’t just possible, it was elemental. Echoing through her, with every slow, controlled thrust. She wriggled beneath him, desperate for that climax he’d given her with his hand out in the other room. She wanted it now. So she began to meet his thrusts. Knew it was what he wanted as the muscles in his neck strained for control.
It felt wild and free. Nothing she’d ever been. Nothing she’d ever wanted. But that reckless fury in his eyes felt like everything she’d been missing. For maybe her whole life.
She came apart in panted sighs and his name on her lips. It was earthshaking. Rearranging everything she’d ever thought…if she could ever reasonablythinkagain.
He held her still, there under him, as the orgasm rattled through her, eased. But he was still deep inside her. He was still here, looking down at her like she was something he could not bear to look away from.
Because he could see her.Her. He had gotten under her armor, her mask, and he saw her and wanted to.
She felt oddly emotional. Wanted to reach out. Wanted something she did not know how to express. A connection, somehow. Because she’d seen underneath his armor too. The way he’d talked of his father. Not the careless throwaway lines about how they didn’t get along.
The cord of truth as towhy.
She put her palm to his cheek, needing some kind of guidance for this huge thing expanding inside of her. “Luciano.”
“Hush,” he ordered. And then he was pulling her up. Into his lap. Sliding into her from this new angle. She nearly burst apart again in one simple thrust, everything whirling in her mind forgotten in lieu of feeling. His mouth found her breast, one hand holding her hip as the other slid up her back, then gripped her hair.
It was not pain exactly. Instead, it vibrated through her like rapture.
“You will come apart for me again,cara mia,” he muttered in a dark, commanding voice. “Now.”
The order thrilled her, and yet she couldn’t resistsomereluctance to be ordered about. “You cannot tell me what to do,carissimo.” But she panted it, at the end of some race she couldn’t fully understand, and couldn’t imagine not wanting to do again. Moving against him, building that climb again. Again and again, she wanted this and him.
His laugh was dark and thrilling. He was deep inside of her. He was everything.
And she was lost.
* * *
She had stripped him of everything. Every mask he’d worn, every piece of armor he’d lovingly crafted for himself. He felt soft and weak and utterly…lost with need. Not a need for that final push, the rush off the cliff. As much as he wanted that, he did notneedit as much as he needed her in his arms.
It was inexplicable and problematic and horrible, and still she was so warm and pliant against him. And still she had breathed his name like a prayer. Andstillall he wanted was this, knowing all the ways it could not, would not, work in his favor. It wasn’t even a tactical error at this point, it was simply catastrophe.
Understanding that did nothing to stop his enjoyment of her. The lavender smell that had infiltrated his bed. The soft, sweet give of her skin. She was perfect from head to toe. The pleasured sleepiness in her hazel eyes a kind of drug he could not imagine finding elsewhere.
