‘Thank you,’ she said again on a whisper.
Leaning down, she slid her hands to cup either side of his face, her fingers pushing into the luxury of his hair as she pressed her mouth to his in a brief kiss.
It wasn’t meant to be sexual. It really wasn’t. It was meant to be grateful and heartfelt. A thank-you kiss from the bottom of her soul.
A kiss for a friend. Quick in and quick out.
But she should have known she was playing with fire. Because now her senses were filled with him. His food offeringshad awakened them to flavour and aroma and texture and she was experiencing them all – his warmth, the scratch of his stubble and the clean male smell of him.
Not even pulling out of the kiss helped because she was incapable of moving away. And now his eyes were on the baggy fall of her shirt, giving him a full-frontal view of her pert naked breasts.
Definitely playing with fire.
He reached out and encircled her wrists with his fingers, and Peyton did not stop him, watching instead the lazy path of his thumb over her pulse point. There was a brief moment when it was possible to back off, to remember that they’d decided not to do this again. But it passed. And then she was sinking her knees into the leather either side of his thighs, straddling him, settling herself against him.
And then they were kissing. Like the world was about to end. And then her shirt was off and his lips were nuzzling a path to her breasts, sucking her nipples deep into the heat and the wet of his mouth, his rough tongue rasping around and around them as they peaked and surged. And then his shirt followed and she was reaching between his legs, unzipping him, touching the hard ridge of him, rubbing herself against him as she freed him from the prison of his underpants.
He groaned at the touch and Peyton almost sighed out loud to have him in the palm of her hand, thick and needy again. Her head buzzed with the heady power of it all, completely beyond being able to stop – driven by too many nights of fevered dreams and solo pleasure that was not anywhere near as good asthis.
Thrusting into her palm, he muttered, ‘Condom?’ into her chest.
Peyton’s head was spinning. What had he said?Condoms?Her heart was racing as she tried to order her thoughts. But thenValentino sucked a nipple into his mouth and she clung to his shoulder as her brain turned to mush.
‘Condom,’ he said again moments later, releasing her thoroughly worshipped nipple.
Peyton sucked in a breath, pushing her hands into his hair. Condoms? She almost laughed. Apart from that time with Valentino, who’d come fully prepared, she hadn’t needed a condom since Arnie had left. Not that they’d used them either. Her ex had always refused to wear one and contraception had become her responsibility.
This house had always been a condom-free zone.
‘I don’t have any.’
He groaned into her neck, muttering a word in Italian she’d heard him say several times that night in the hotel. Easing apart, they stared at each other, heaving in oxygen, their chests rising and falling. Long beats passed where there was nothing but the sound of their ragged pants and then, as if something had snapped inside them both, caution was thrown to the wind and they were kissing again, touching, rubbing, sighing, moaning.
Somehow, Peyton wasn’t quite sure how, he manoeuvred her trackpants and underwear off until she was naked astride him, her hands splayed on his bare shoulders. Levering herself back, she looked down at herself, dizzy with the day’s success and the hot, hard feel of him, not remotely embarrassed by the wantonness of her nudity on full display.
How was this even her? So wild and… free? So bloody uninhibited. But it was. Just like the last time with this man – he brought out the recklessness in her.
She arched her back, thrusting her breasts, earning a quick, sharp inhale from Valentino, which hit her system like a shot of tequila on an empty stomach. She’d always hated her breasts. They’d always been small and with her weight loss even more so. But tonight they looked amazing, her nipples dark from therough tease of Valentino’s tongue and puckered like raspberries beneath his rapt gaze.
He didn’t seem to find them wanting.
Further down, his fingers were spread wide against the angles of her hipbones, bronzed against her paler skin. She could feel them holding her, caging her,brandingher, his thumbs circling lazily, stroking the sensitive skin where her hips sloped to her belly.
His erection rose from his open fly and wedged between them, pressing hard against her slick folds. Not joined – not yet. But she needed it. She needed it now.
Raising her eyes, she locked on his as she rose to her knees, rolling her hips again, her slickness gliding along his length.
‘Peyton,’ he groaned, deep and guttural, his fingers biting into her hips as she undulated against him, the centre of her finding the solid head of him.
Easing herself down, she panted and rocked, stretchingso damn good, taking him into her body – taking him all the way – on a gasp that shook her to her core.
‘Fuck!’ he cursed in English this time with such rough wonder it was like a sonnet to her ears.
Chest heaving, Peyton pushed back once more, looking down at where they were joined. Where they were one. Where everything was hot and slick and tingling like a fuse ripe for a spark, making her dizzy with desire.
‘That feelssogood,’ she said on a ragged pant as she wound her arms around his head, wrapping him close.
How had she forgotten how perfectly they fit?
