“It’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me.”
And then she was back in his lap, trailing kisses all over his face, whispering things he couldn’t make out, and he thought it was the happiest he’d ever been.
Chapter Ten
SAM WOKE UPto find the bedroom bathed in strips of moonlight.
Alessandro had picked her up outside Giuseppe’s apartment, having waited for two hours. She’d fallen asleep the moment he’d started the car. By the time she’d showered, he had disappeared.
Blinking, she sat up and found him in the armchair. Legs kicked out in front, fingers clasped on his abdomen, eyes closed. His dark hair gleamed with wetness, that aura of quiet confidence clinging to him in repose too.
Gray sweatpants hung low on his hips, and his bare chest was lean but defined.
She moved to stand in front of him, skin thrumming with molten awareness. For all that he claimed that this was an affair, they still hadn’t had sex. If anything, he seemed almost…reluctant. All her insecurities about how inexperienced she was crashed into her.
With Matteo, sex had been another milestone, a rite of passage, even another item in her adulting checklist. She had wanted the experience more than she had wanted him specifically, which was horrible and stupid in hindsight.
With Alessandro, though, all she wanted was to lose herself in him and make him lose all sense of control.
“Sameera?” he said, coming awake. “Everything okay?”
“Why didn’t you join me in bed?”
He straightened in the armchair, the soft light from the standing lamp making his pecs shine. “You didn’t invite me in.”
“What do you think the last few weeks have been about?” she snarled, throat tight.
“You were deeply asleep,” he said in that same calm tone. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You want me or not?”
He spread his legs in a wicked invitation, and her gaze slid down his body. The shape of his long, thick erection, evident against his sweatpants, made her skin prickle. His gray gaze patiently waited for her to come back. “I’m always like this now,tesoro. All it takes is a thought of you.”
Squaring her shoulders, she moved forward until she was straddling his legs. Putting her weight on the armrest, she climbed into his lap. His thighs were rock hard against her flesh, and his scent of cloves and pine wrapped around her like a tendril of lust.
His palms stroked her hips, her ass, her thighs, over and over. The scrape of his abrasive palms against her smooth skin left pockets of heat behind. Those gray eyes searched hers. “You’re nervous,bella.” His hands drifted upward, spanning the tight curve of her waist, rough knuckles brushing the underside of her breasts but not lingering. “We’ll take it slow, Sameera,” he said, a ragged edge to his words. His open mouth drew a wet-hot trail over her jaw.
Swatting his hands away, Sam scooted upward on his thighs until his cock speared her, notching perfectly against her clit. “I don’t want slow or controlled, Alessandro. I want to consume you, break you apart. Until I know you like no one else does.”
Squeezing her hips hard, he jostled her on his throbbing length, just enough to send dampness pooling at her core. “Why,bella?”
Leaning down, she bit his lower lip. “I don’t know, okay? I…have never felt like this before.”
“In that, we are not apart,tesoro.” Then took her mouth in their hottest, hungriest kiss yet.
Sam couldn’t catch her breath. She didn’t want to. He ravaged her mouth, breathing out endearments when she willingly took it and curses when she got aggressive. His tongue thrust into her mouth in a vulgar parody of what she needed somewhere else. He whispered things in Italian she didn’t understand but made her shiver.
He stroked and kneaded every rise and dip of her curves. His fingers moved up and down, charting her skin. On every downward slide, they pressed against her breasts, but never touching enough, never following through.
“Please, Alessandro, just come inside me now…”
“No,bella. Let’s get you ready first, or I will hurt you.”
Sam moaned into his mouth, desperate for him to be as mindless as her. “I want fast and furious,” she said biting at his lower lip.
He shook his head, his hands busy rolling up the hem of her T-shirt. “Not for our first time, no.”
She lost her protest as her shirt came off. Long fingers circled her nipples, which were tight and achy even without touch. His palm flat on her belly, he pushed her until she was leaning back, her hair a silky waterfall down her bare back.
