‘You can well imagine? I like that. Very good for my ego.’ Rocco kissed the crown of her head and sifted his fingers through her hair, tilting her face to his and then very gently contouring her lips with his tongue so that she shivered against him and came a little closer.
He thought about his background: extreme wealth, extreme privilege, the very foundations of inbuilt self-confidence. He wondered how she would react if he were to come clean, but that wasn’t an option, and if there was a twinge of unease at the thought of what he was obliged to keep to himself then he dismissed it because they were both in a bubble, far removed from reality. He would leave, she would return to being the person she was and it would be the same for him. Ships passing in the night.
‘Maybe,’ she mused, ‘You’re confident because you’re an only child, so you’ve never had to tailor your personality to adapt to a sibling, and you’ve never had to compete for your parents’ attention. You must have been lavished with love.’
‘Actually,’ Rocco said pensively, ‘I wouldn’t say that I was very close to my parents at all.’
‘Weren’t you?’
She levered herself up and stared at him with undisguised curiosity, which made him smile again.
‘They were very cold.’
‘Why? Poor you.’ She hugged him and held him tightly for a couple of seconds. ‘You must have been lonely as an only child if your parents were distant. Were you?’
‘I… I suppose,’ Rocco said slowly, ‘There were times when I was. Yes.’
‘When?’
‘You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?’ He breathed in deeply, and there it was again—a feeling of freedom that he knew hewould treasure when life returned to normal and he resumed his responsibilities. ‘Christmas.’
‘Christmas?’
Rocco burst out laughing. ‘For someone who’s been through quite a bit, you’re very soft-hearted. Yes, Christmas was never the highlight of my life.’
‘My family was always very close. My brother may have been a little wild—’ she smiled ‘—but there was never any question that we were there for one another. I feel for you when you tell me that you weren’t close to your parents and were lonely at Christmas…that’s a joyous time of the year. It’s a big deal here and at Hailey’s. We hold a lunch for people who are homeless and we arrange a Santa grotto for the kids. The store sponsors it all.’
Rocco didn’t want to think about Hailey’s because it reminded him of the fate that awaited it. It was also an unwelcome reminder that this liberated man wasn’t him but someone else, someone on borrowed time, someone the real Rocco would look back on with affection and bemusement.
‘Don’t feel too sad for me,’ he breathed, his body stirring into arousal as the feel of her against him became too much to bear. ‘I got presents and there was a tree. It was just never celebrated with any warmth. What’s happening with that food? Can it wait? Because I can’t.’
He touched her, relaxing into the less challenging place where physical contact took precedence over touchy-feely conversation that was so unlike him.
‘I like talking to you,’ Ella murmured. ‘You’re nothing like what I expected when they told me that someone would be coming to shadow me for a fortnight.’
‘And you’re nothing like what I expected when I came here. I never thought that my boss would be a woman who drove me crazy with desire. Let’s stop talking. I want to make love to you.’
Ella wound her arms round his neck and smiled when he hoisted her easily off the sofa and took her into the bedroom. She wasn’t wearing a bra or any underwear. She’d quickly become accustomed to the way he wanted to touch her all the time, scooping down into her soft jogging bottoms to feel the wetness between her legs or pulling her towards him and pushing up her jumper so that he could caress her breasts. He’d told her that he’d quite like her to walk around completely naked in the cottage but, failing that, to dispense with the underwear. From the stern position of never making the mistake of yielding to any man, she had yielded to those demands with lightning speed.
Thoughts left her head in a hurry. She lay back on the bed and watched as he stripped off, as mesmerised by the muscled strength of his body as though she was seeing it for the first time. He was exquisite—broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, muscular but athletic, as though he worked out, even though he’d told her in passing that he never went to a gym because he hated the thought of committing to a certain amount of exercise a week.
She tugged off her clothes, first the jogging bottoms and then the tee-shirt, and flung both on the floor. He strolled towards the bed and her legs parted of their own volition. She was so wet for him, so ready for him to settle over her.
The curtains weren’t drawn and fading light filtered in, mellow and warm on the wood panelling and whitewashed stone. As soon as Ella had stepped into the cottage, she’d felt at home. It was warm and cosy, with timbered beams across low ceilings and faded rugs on the floor. There was an open fireplace in the bedroom and a basket of logs next to it, ready for winter. As Rocco caressed her, she idly wondered what it would be like if they were here in winter, snow falling and the feel of Christmas all around them.
She relaxed into that fantasy but that, too, flew from her head as he began a slow exploration of her body until all she wanted to do was writhe against those searching fingers. Years of her careful life were swept away in a torrent of explosive desire that was ripping her apart. She burned up as his hand moved from her small breasts to between her legs, rubbing the flat of his fingers against the swollen bud of her clitoris. Each stroke of those clever fingers ratcheted up the scorching heat of her responsive body.
His touch felt familiar but no less arousing, and she groaned, eyelids fluttering, her body moving as he caressed her between her sprawled legs. His nakedness was hot against her and she reached to circle his thick member with her hand so that she could stroke him, picking up the tempo, knowing exactly how he liked to be touched because he had been shockingly open about telling her.
She slowly bucked against his fingers, an orgasm building to sweep her away. It took all her willpower to fight it, to push his hand away so that she could devote herself to ministering tohim, to pleasuringhim. He was a generous lover, satisfying her before himself, taking his time when she knew that he was on the edge of exploding. He was the sort of lover who made her feelloved. Although, of course, this wasn’t aboutlove.
She angled her body and laughed when he tried to pin her down, but he was happy enough to lie back, to let her touch him, then lowering herself along his brown, hard body, down to his penis, which she licked and stroked before taking it into her mouth. She lost herself in the taste and the urgent throb of him as she sucked and felt the pump of blood in his veins, the pulsing response of a man who, like her, was lost in a world of sensory pleasure.
He detached from her with a low, guttural moan and fumbled blindly for the packet of condoms he had stashed in the drawernext to the bed. Not a guy to take chances. She was giddy with arousal. She wanted him to touch her again but knew that, if he did, she wouldn’t be able to control the fevered urgency of her response and she didn’t want to come against his hand. She wanted him inside her.
She closed her eyes and controlled her breathing, waiting for his body to merge with hers and for the yearning inside her to be sated. He thrust into her in one powerful motion that took her breath away and he began moving inside her, his rhythm deep and forceful until she could feel her whole body spiralling out of control in ways that were mind-blowing. She came on a cry of deep pleasure and flung back her head. Her mouth was open while her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. How was it possible to feel this depth of pure, joyful, satisfying, earth-shattering, wondrous pleasure?
She knew when he had come, his orgasm mirroring hers. She could feel him swell inside her, filling her up. She was oblivious to everything but the heat of her excited body as it slowly descended from the crescendo of her orgasm back down to planet Earth. She sagged against him and, for a few moments, neither of them said anything.
