Chapter Four
Hennessy
I REACH UP to touch his face, but he is already fitting his lips to mine.
He drops the bag and one hand closes around my waist, the other flattening against the wall so that there is nothing but Renzo’s hot mouth and his hard body.
And he is hard. I can feel him pushing through the fabric of his trousers, and I feel his hunger. It matches mine.
And that is new. Exhilarating. He pulls me forward, spinning us both round so that I grab his arm to stay upright, my fingers biting into the muscle.
Now I am pulling him, taking him with me, which is crazy, because I don’t know where I’m going.
But it doesn’t matter because Renzo is coming with me.
We move backwards, his knee nudging me through the foyer as we kiss fiercely, open-mouthed, unfettered by the past, common sense or the narrow confines of what qualifies as a good idea.
This is not a good idea on any level. And yet it feels not just good but essential.
It feels necessary and I hurtle into it like a satellite falling to earth, burning up in the atmosphere, because I want this. I want him.
My body is twitching with a need I’ve never felt, and I moan as he licks inside my mouth.
His hands are moving over my body, his fingers shaking, and that makes me shake.
I tense as he pulls back a fraction, panic rearing up inside me at the thought that he will stop it.
But he pushes open a door and my heart pounds in anticipation as I realise we’re in a bedroom.
His? I don’t know. What’s more, I don’t care.
I pull his shirt free from the waistband of his trousers and begin unbuttoning it as he jerks my jacket from my shoulders.
‘I’ll do it,’ he says impatiently. He steps back and yanks his shirt over his head.
Oh, wow. I’ve never seen so much of him naked, and my mind feels as if it is exploding as I stare at his smooth chest and flat, contoured stomach.
And then he steps forward and kisses me deeply, his hands skimming my waist, my hips and my belly, and I feel my breath ripple through my body in tandem with my hunger.
‘My dress.’ My voice is shaking with his nearness and my need to be nearer. ‘I want to take it off.’ His mouth jerks back from mine and we reach for the shoulder straps at the same time. As it slips over my body, I sway forward, shivering as I feel the cool air on my skin and the heat of his gaze.
Because he is staring at me, staring intently, hungrily, his throat jerking as if he is struggling to breathe past something.
My muscles, my nerve endings, every bone in my body, tense and reach towards him.
No one has ever looked at me like this. No one has ever made me feel so helpless and hungry at the same time.
‘Come here,’ he murmurs, and I move without hesitation.
Our mouths meet again, and we kiss greedily.
He cups his palm over the lace of my bra, his thumb finding my already taut nipple.
I arch into him as his other hand slides over my hip beneath my panties, and then his fingers move inside me.
My belly clenches and unclenches as he strokes my clit with slow, concentric circles.
‘Yes…’
The word rasps from my lips as I squirm against him. I am pulsating beneath his fingers and, swallowing a moan, I press my hand against the hard press of his erection.
‘Hennessy…’ My name stretches out in his mouth, the last syllable elongating between his lips, his breath hot against my cheek. The sound of his voice, the hoarseness, makes everything inside me soften and I tug at his trousers, freeing him.
My breath catches, and his does too as I wrap my hand around the hard, smooth length of him.
He grabs my arm to steady himself and I love that I can make him lose his sense of gravity.
He reaches round to unhook my bra, peeling the fabric from my body, and as it floats to the floor I watch the flecks of gold and green in the blue of his irises explode like fireworks.
He is at the edge of his self-control, and I like that too.
I want to break down his barriers. I want him to shake with desperation.
I want him feverish and burning with desire.
I drop to my knees and take him in my mouth as deeply as I can go, which is no more than halfway, clasping his right leg for balance and tilting up my chin so that I can watch his face and see the tension there as I swirl my tongue over the head, grazing it lightly with my teeth.
His hand tangles through my hair, pulling it free, and as it tumbles down my back I lose myself in the taste of him and the way his muscles tremble with the effort of holding back.
But I don’t want to hold back. I want to chase this restless, stabbing pulse between my thighs.
I press the flat of my hand there, trying to catch it, my fingers sliding back and forth.
I feel his gaze tense and narrow, feel him swell and harden in my mouth…
‘No, not like that.’
His voice is raw-edged, and it scrapes at my senses as he tugs me up, kissing me on my mouth, my throat and collar bone, then sucking my nipples into his mouth. It feels so good that I never want it to stop.
But now he half-nudges, half-tips me onto the bed. I clutch blindly at his arms and pull him closer, grinding against his erection and whimpering at this new hollowed-out, swollen feeling of need that is swallowing me whole.
‘I want you inside me,’ I say. His blue eyes lock with mine and I see his pupils fatten and splay out. My pulse flickers madly.
‘I’ll get a condom.’
‘It’s fine. I’m on the pill. Unless you’d prefer…’
‘No.’
The word is out of his mouth as he shunts down beside me and I feel a flicker of nerves. He tugs me on top of him. Maybe it’s the position, or the fact that I can see the hunger swimming in his blue gaze, but suddenly everything accelerates into a blur, and I guide him in.
He is big and I suck in a breath. He stills beneath me. ‘Okay?’
I nod and he reaches up to caress my breasts.
I groan. He does too, the sound vibrating in the space between our bodies.
I push against him, and I feel it then—a fluttering pleasure low in my pelvis, warm and liquid, like simmering water.
I want to cry with relief, and also laugh, but mostly I want to press against him and pin down that hazy, indescribable ripple of heat.
What I want is more of him—more flesh, more skin, more of his searching fingers.
Pleasure drifts up inside me like woodsmoke.
My nipples are aching, and I am slick and hot between my thighs in a way that I have never been before.
‘Renzo…’
His name burns in my mouth and his eyes find mine. I see fire and hunger in the black of his pupils and my head swims as he stares up at me.
‘Ti voglio,’ he says hoarsely, and I feel it deep inside my core. I want you.
His words, his need, are like fire in my belly, and I arch against him, the scrape of my pelvic bone against the zip of his trousers unravelling me. I clench around him as he flexes against me. I am pure sensation and heat swells inside me, doubles and then and bursts.
The noise that breaks from my mouth is like the cry of an animal. I don’t know myself. I am melting, my blood is dancing, and then Renzo is gripping my hip. His entire body shudders, arching up, dragging me with him as he kisses my face, my throat, my mouth.
For a moment, we lie like that, fused, a mess of twitching skin and hearts thundering, our breath merging and oscillating in the silence of the bedroom as the aftershocks of our orgasms slowly subside.
His hand moves over my back, the tips of his fingers caressing and imprinting into my skin like a maker’s mark.
Because he did this. He made me into something, someone, new. I wasn’t a virgin, but what just happened with Renzo feels more transformative than that awkward first encounter. I feel different, heavy and stretched out in a good way, and my body is tingling.
But then that was my first ever orgasm with a man.
On my own, I can sometimes get there, but I’ve always faked it with a partner.
Thanks to porn, I know what is expected, and to be honest my hook-ups are so wasted they neither notice or care that I don’t undress and that I can apparently reach a climax simply by touching them.
But I would rather people bought into that version of me than know that I am a failure in bed as well as in life.
I know I should move; get up and leave before we spoil it by speaking.
But I need a moment to get my bearings, and the pulsing warmth of Renzo’s body is irresistible.
Just one more minute, I tell myself, and then I’ll get up.
Only, I might just shut my eyes for a second, because I suddenly feel incredibly sleepy.
The stress of the last thirty-six hours, and a languor I’ve never felt after any intimate encounter, is setting in.
But I won’t sleep. I never do…
I wake up to the soft patter of raindrops and a pale, grey light, and my first thought is astonishment that it is morning. And then I feel Renzo’s arm on my hip, and I remember yesterday. What we did. What I did. What I felt.
My pulse twitches. We forgot to draw the curtains last night and the sky today is a sludgy grey, but there is enough sunlight for me to see the tiny little red marks on my breast and collar bone where Renzo’s stubble scraped against my skin.
I place my fingertips against them and press, watching them disappear, only to return seconds later.
I don’t know how I feel, what to feel. But then it’s hard to describe something without a name. And what do I call us after what happened last night? We’re not a couple. We’re not strangers hooking up on an app for casual sex. We’re not friends with benefits.