His head lifted. His dark eyes were hooded, his handsome features taut with concentration. His hoarse voice was barely audible. “Am I hurting you?”
She managed the lightest shake of her head. The pain was already receding.
Eyes locked on hers, he drove in a little further and then the hand he’d been using to guide his arousal was tiptoeing up her abdomen to caress her breast while he used his hips to thrust the rest of his length into her.
She hitched another breath and closed her eyes as her body adjusted to the alien sensation of Gino buried deeply and fully inside her. Tiny sparks danced behind her eyelids. She could feel him throbbing inside her…
She heard him swallow. Heard him catch his breath. Felt the rigidity of his muscles. The restraint in them. The restraint inhim.
He withdrew slowly before driving back inside her with the same restrained control, and when he did it again, excitement uncoiled and thickened inside her.
Lifting her face to kiss him, she slipped her hand out of his and smoothed it onto his back. Felt the slight shudder at her touch.
He began to move. His possession was slow and rhythmic and so exquisite that soon all her nerve endings caught fire again. The deeper they burned, the harder she clung to him.
Intoxicated in sensation, she buried her face in the crook of his neck and melted into him, lost to everything but Gino. She’d known sex was associated with pleasure, but never had she imagined it would be likethis…
She was slipping away from herself again. Throbbing sensations were building with every stroke of his strong loins; every thrust taking her closer to a shimmering, mythical place that was suddenly real and waiting for her. Her body liftedtowards it, moving with him, instinct taking control of her, holding him even tighter, his barely restrained groans soaking into her ears, feeding the sensations. She was inching closer to the shimmer, a fingertip away, her lungs and heart sobbing, and then she was touching it, Gino carrying her into it, pushing her over its edge. With a cry she had no control of, her body splintered, and she was being carried away in spasm after spasm of relentless pleasure, aware only in a faint, distant recess of her mind of his drawn-out shudder before he collapsed on her.
Chapter Eleven
No matterhow hard he tried, Gino couldn’t catch his breath. He knew he needed to shift his weight off her, knew he needed to dispose of the condom, but he couldn’t break the inertia that had gripped him any more than he could make his lungs work.
If he didn’t move soon, he would squash her. He might already be squashing her.
With a reluctance he had never before experienced, he moved his cheek from Francesca’s and lifted his weight.
Before breaking the last connection between them, he gazed down at her face. Her cheeks were heightened with colour, her eyes somehow both bright and dazed. Her lips were plumper than he’d ever seen them. Remembering all the kisses they’d shared, he thought his might be too.
He could do nothing to stop his mouth from pressing another kiss to hers.
Sighing softly, she stroked his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered shyly.
His chest filling with an emotion he didn’t recognise, he kissed her again. “I need to use the bathroom.”
On his feet, he found his legs decidedly unsteady, and he finally managed to draw air into his lungs before heading into the bathroom.
After flushing the condom away, he splashed cold water on his face and concentrated on regulating his breathing. Regulating the beats of his thumping heart.
It was hard to concentrate his mind on anything but the woman in his bed.
He’d felt the exact moment she’d relaxed into his possession. He’d felt everything.
Splashing more water on his face, he patted himself dry and stared at his reflection.
Francesca’s virginity was always going to make the experience different to what he was used to. He’d had to concentrate on making things good for her, and as a result, he’d had to tune himself into her in a way he’d never needed to do before, so of course it had all felt different. It had been inevitable that taking her for the first time would feel profound. Meaningful.
And now the most significant part was done. He’d paid the first part of his forfeit for losing. In a few hours, the night would be over, and he would never have to touch her again.
In the bedroom, she was sitting up, the duvet clasped tightly around her. She looked up at him. Colour flooded her cheeks, and she quickly looked away before their eyes could connect.
“Are you okay?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Her vulnerability moved him in ways it shouldn’t.
“You’re not supposed to have regrets for another ten years, remember?” he teased gently.
