Chapter 30 Charlotte
Charlotte
“You didn’t tell me your thoughts on the Sistine Chapel.” Cole’s rough whisper was hot against my cheek as he laid me down on the bed.
“I haven’t seen it yet.”
I pulled him down so that his hard body covered mine.
We’d lost my dress and his trousers on the way to the bed.
This was Rome’s fault. The buzz and the heat and the limoncello and the sadness around Cole’s eyes.
I captured his mouth in a kiss, savoring the warmth and softness of his full lips.
This man made me feral with lust. Shivers raced through my body, and I ached with the need to be full of him.
His slow, teasing kisses shredded my patience.
He was always so measured and unhurried.
It had taken every ounce of self-restraint not to rip off his clothes when he was kissing me so slow and deep in the elevator.
Raising his mouth from mine, he peered into my eyes with a slight frown. “What? Why not? I thought you’d been to the Vatican?”
I frantically worked the buttons of his shirt. “I did, but I didn’t get the chance to see it.”
He spoke between hot open-mouthed kisses on my neck. “Why not? Isn’t that the part you were looking forward to?”
I’d had the chance, but something had held me back. I didn’t even know what. It was stupid. I’d built it into too big a thing. What if it didn’t live up to my expectations? “I don’t know. I just got too in my head about it. I can’t explain.”
He hesitated, watching me. “But you’re planning to go? There’s so much in there that you’ll love. The Last Judgement. The Creation of Adam . . .”
Seriously? Now? I was more interested in the creation of bone-melting orgasms. Some reckless impulse had driven me in the bar downstairs.
Cole had opened up in a way I’d never thought him capable of.
There were still things I couldn’t excuse, and his revelations hadn’t suddenly made him a suitable prospect for a genuine relationship.
But I couldn’t help how my body craved him.
If it was for one night, then I’d take one night.
I pulled off his shirt and took in his glorious, powerful presence in his tented boxers—the dark hair covering his defined pecs, his toned abs, the delicious V of his hips. This is what he’d been hiding beneath those sharp suits. A perfect marble sculpture made flesh and bone.
“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t go and see it if you had the chance?”
Can’t we just drop it? “Are all handymen so interested in Renaissance art?”
He raised a dark brow. “I’m interested in you.”
“No. That’s not what this is.” I ran my hands up the hard, taut planes of his back. “Sean doesn’t care about my opinions on the Eternal City,” I whispered into his ear. “Sean just wants to use me like he’s getting everything he wants from me because he’s never going to see me again.”
Cole’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Perhaps he was expecting the inexperienced, blushing girl he’d left behind all those years ago.
The tattoo hidden behind the dark hair on his chest, just above his heart, drew my gaze.
It was Latin script, but I’d never have a chance of deciphering it.
Best not to ask. It was probably a mood killer about crushing your enemies and drinking out of their skulls.
His hand slipped inside the cup of my bra and his fingers traced the outline of my nipple. Tingles raced from his touch, and thoughts of tattoos and anything else at all slipped out of my head. He unfastened my bra and threw it to one side.
His gaze fixed on my breasts, and he gave a tormented groan. “Fuck. Look at you.”
I fought the urge to cover my breasts with my hands.
My body wasn’t perfect by any beauty standard, but I’d made my peace with it.
If the pain of my father’s slow deterioration had taught me anything, it was that aging is a gift.
I was grateful for my soft stomach, round ass, and dimpled thighs.
Grateful for a healthy body that worked.
There was more right with me than wrong.
Cole’s hungry gaze roamed over me, his obvious approval searing my skin.
“So beautiful.” He sucked a nipple into his mouth, and my body arched against him.
His voice was cool, but fire smoldered in his dark eyes. “Are you saying you want Sean to fuck you like he doesn’t care about you?”
The pulse at my core wouldn’t be relieved with soft and gentle. That’s not what my body craved. “I’m saying I haven’t done this for a long time, and I want to lose myself. That is, if Sean’s into it . . .”
He circled my nipple lightly with his thumb and then pinched it just hard enough to sting. “Don’t worry about that. He’s into anything when it’s with you.”
He pushed my legs apart, kissed his way down my body, and positioned himself between my thighs.
With a finger, he hooked my underwear to one side and then his mouth was on me.
He spread me with one delicious flat-tongued lap between my lips and fixated on my swollen clit, teasing and probing. Pleasure shock-waved through me.
“Oh my God. That’s better than I thought it would be.”
His hot breath against my clit made my toes curl. “I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not.”
“I just mean because no one’s ever done this to me.”
“No one?” His tongue delved inside of me and my limbs melted like gelato. “They’ve missed out. This is the most delicious pussy I’ve ever had.”
He slid off my underwear and devoured me as if he’d never come up for air. A gasp left my mouth. My hands found his soft hair, and I writhed and bucked against his face. He explored my breasts, playing with my taut nipples between his fingertips while he worked my clit with his tongue.
My fingers ached where they clawed the sheets. “You don’t have to stay down there too long. I don’t know if it’s going to happen like this.”
He pressed my thighs down with his palms, folding me in half for better access. “You taste so good. I’m staying down here until I get lockjaw.”
He returned to his work, sliding a finger inside while he tongued and probed.
Climax claimed me with a force so sharp and sudden it was painful.
My thighs clamped around his head, but he spread me wide and gripped my ass, holding me against his face.
Involuntary shudders made my body writhe across the bed, but his mouth was glued to my clit, and no matter how I jerked away from him, his hands always dragged me back.
Hot sparks crackled over my skin. Electricity sizzled from the arches of my feet to my crown.
I was drowning in this cold, controlled man who I’d never imagined could be so raw and passionate.
His tongue soothed my sensitive, pulsing flesh.
I gripped his shoulders, marking his skin with my nails and chanting his name over and over like a benediction.
The world dissolved, and there was nothing but senseless ecstasy. No beginning. No end. No merciless, gnawing grief. Just a blank page in the middle of a book with limitless possibilities for a new story.
Cole pulled off his boxers. I tried not to make my wince obvious. He had a beautiful cock, long and thick. If I could walk straight tomorrow, it would be a miracle.
“Sean wasn’t lying about the size of the hammer.”
With a smirk and a firm grip on my hips, he dragged me to the end of the bed.
His voice was low and serious. “You think your husband doesn’t care about you, but I happen to know he does.”
He maneuvered me onto all fours.
“He does?”
“He might not be good at showing that kind of thing, but he cares about you. And he respects you.”
He smoothed his hands down the length of my back and placed a kiss at the base of my spine.
Sincerity threaded through his voice. I cared about him too.
It was complicated and weird and some days my heart was too sore to know much beyond grief, but I was glad he’d come back into my life, even if it was under such strange circumstances.
“Sean, on the other hand? I’m afraid good, honest, decent, hard-working Sean couldn’t give a single shiny fuck about Natalia. He was in that bar tonight because he wanted to get laid. Anyone would do.”
I adopted a scandalized tone. “Don’t tell me Sean’s a scoundrel?”
“He’s an absolute bastard. Always cutting corners and ripping people off. He just wants you for your body. For this juicy ass.”
He slapped my ass. The sound rang out loud in the bedroom.
I couldn’t help my laugh. “Juicy?”
“Yes. So fucking round and juicy. It drives him wild.”
He slapped it again, harder. The laugh died on my lips and turned into a moan at the tingling mix of pleasure and pain. His hands cupped my breasts.
“He wants you for these beautiful, bouncy tits.”
“Sean’s a boob man?” I should have known from all the times I’d caught Cole sneaking glances at my chest when we were younger.
“Yes, and he’s never seen better than these.” He squeezed my breasts, feeling their heavy weight in his palms. “He can’t believe his luck tonight.”
“But Sean must have had a lot of women?”
“Not as many as you’d think. None that has ever mattered. He’s always been too hung up on a woman from his past.”
I had no time to process that because he started playing with my clit, circling and pinching. It was still too sensitive from my orgasm. “Fuck. It’s too much. Please.”
“What about Natalia? Has she had many boyfriends?”
“A couple. Nothing serious.”
“Did she love any of them?”
“No. This isn’t the time. Sean never stops talking. I thought he wanted to get laid?”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back lightly, making my spine arch. With his hands under my chin, he forced my gaze up to meet his.
“He fixed your wall, didn’t he? You should talk to him with more respect.”
“You’re right.”
I turned around. He stood at the end of the bed, tall, naked, and confident. I’d imagined him like this many times, but no fantasy could do his sculpted masculinity justice.
I kneeled on the bed in front of him. “Sean deserves some gratitude for a job well done.”