Nat woke with a start early the next morning to a pale finger of daylight peeking through the gap in the curtains. She’d slept on and off most of yesterday and like a log last night, so she was disorientated for a beat but, yep, she was still in Alessandro’s room. In fact, so was he, his big bulk behind her, wrapped around her, his strong forearm so close to her cheek she could have turned her face and pressed a kiss to it.
Had she sought him out like the previous night or had it just been a natural position for their bodies to assume? The lovers within finding a way to be together if only subconsciously?
She realised suddenly she actually felt quite good. No aches or pains. Her headache had gone and her thought processes didn’t seem sluggish. She didn’t feel feverish either and she hadn’t coughed much overnight that she could remember. Was she up for a marathon? No. But the worst seemed to have passed.
Wriggling a little for the sheer joy of being able to do so without pain, she suddenly became aware of a hardness pressing into her from behind. And she knew instantly what had wokenher, as surely as she knew her own heartbeat. The woman inside had subconsciously responded to the signal from her lover.
Lover. She and Alessandro were lovers. But that was all they’d ever be.
‘Alessandro?’ she whispered.
A groan ruffled her hair from behind as his forehead thunked against her shoulder blade, his breath warm on her neck. ‘I’m sorry,il mio amore. My body betrays me.’
A rush of desire slammed down low and she squeezed her legs together as a burst of heat tingled between them. He sounded in agony – wanting something and knowing he shouldn’t – and she could definitely relate.
She shouldn’t want him like this either after his betrayal. But she did.
He sucked in a deep steadying breath. ‘If you let go of my arm, I’ll get up.’
Nat realised his lower arm was trapped against her body. But suddenly she didn’t want to release him. They’d forged a new kind of intimacy the last couple of days and she didn’t want to let it go – not yet.
Her body was burning with a different kind of fever now – one only he could cure. She wanted him. Around her, on her, in her – deep and pounding.
Maybe her illness had weakened her and stripped away all her pride – she didn’t care, but suddenly her blood was boiling with lust. His aroma filled her senses and the lust surged around her body, filling up every cell, every heartbeat, every breath. It was crazy, she knew, but was it so wrong to want one last moment – one last hurrah – with him to cherish forever?
She reached behind, sliding her hand between them, seeking and finding his taut erection straining against his underwear.
His forehead pressed harder. ‘Nathalie!’ he said, half groan, half warning.
But Nat’s hands shook and her pulse raced – she was beyond logic. She gave him a fierce squeeze before burrowing past his waistband and sliding around his naked length, revelling in his guttural moan that echoed around the room. He sounded like a bull elephant in rut and she could barely see, she was so inflamed with need.
It was like her illness had fried away all her higher thinking, reducing her to just a base model – just breathing and fucking.
She grabbed his lower hand and brought it to her breast, crying out herself as he squeezed it, needing him to touch her. ‘Yes!’
‘Nathalie…’ he muttered as her hand slid up and down his length, sliding it enticingly against the cheeks of her ass. ‘I don’t think we should be doing this now. You’re not fully recovered.’
Nat shook her head as his fingers rubbed through her shirt at the tortured peak of her nipple, hurting so damn good. ‘I’m fine,’ she panted, her breath hot and strangled in her throat. ‘I need this.’ She moved her hand from his cock to yank down her underwear, dragging it over her hips as she pressed her bare buttocks into the hard heat of him, grinding against his erection.
‘Nathalie!’
She reached for him again, wrapping her hand around his girth. ‘Please.’
‘We should… talk first,’ he muttered, his hand sliding to her hip and holding fast.
Nat shook her head. No, if they talked they wouldn’t get to this and sheneededthis. When she was gone and she was lying in her lonely bed aching for him – she was going to need this.
‘Later,’ she insisted. ‘I need you in me now.’
He muttered something low under his breath she couldn’t understand as his hand strayed from her hip and slid between her legs, her back arching as the stimulus shot through her likean electrical current. ‘Oh God,’ she whimpered, moving against him frantically. ‘Yes… there…please.’
His fingers found her clit and rubbed. ‘Slow down,’ he whispered.
Nat shook her head. ‘No.’ She was ready for him and she was greedy for it, needing him inside her like some biological imperative. After this there would be nothing, so this one had to count. Rubbing her hot slickness against his rampant hardness, she stretched her arm over her head, slinging it around his neck. ‘Now,’ she demanded.
He gave in on the kind of guttural groan she would never forget – deep and so fucking needy – sliding himself into place where she was wet and hot for him, the thickness of his head nudging intimately as his hand dragged her hips back and he thrust deep inside.
And it was perfect.
