Chapter 21 #2
I hold out my hand and she takes it, letting me help her into the bathtub. She sinks down into the bubbly water with a guttural sigh that also doesn’t help the situation in my shorts.
I leave her to soak, heading downstairs to the kitchen for the bouquet of flowers we brought home from the event yesterday.
I pluck out five of the roses and take them upstairs, dropping multicolored rose petals all over the bed.
I stand back and admire my work. There. That looks good.
Pretty sure I saw something just like this on one of those Hallmark movies I was forced to watch around Christmastime with Silas and Rhett.
Mary London insisted it was for our romantic education, something I scoffed at back then. Now I’ll have to remember to thank her.
Pacing the bedroom, I wonder what else I should be doing to make this more romantic.
In a flash of inspiration, I rush around the house and find a candle, lighting it and placing it on the bedside table.
My sheets are clean, so that should be fine.
Champagne? Shit. I don’t have any on hand.
Do I have enough time to go buy some real quick?
“Deuce?” Valentina calls from the bathroom.
I find her getting out, her body sluiced with water and bubbles. She’s reaching for a towel, which I grab for her and wrap around her shoulders.
“If I stay in any longer, I’ll fall asleep,” she says, looking adorable as I rub the towel over her skin to dry her off.
Then I toss off the towel and pick her up like a princess. She lets out a shriek that turns into a giggle. I lay her on the bed, where she looks around her at the rose petals.
“Nice touch, ciuccio,” she drawls.
I twitch my finger back and forth. “Nuh-uh. That nickname belongs in the hate-fucking category.”
She rolls her eyes and tosses a few petals at me. I step back and drop my shorts, finally releasing the erection that doesn’t want to take things slow. Valentina leers at it, then makes a grab for it as I put my knee on the bed and climb over her. I have to bat her hands away.
“Slow, V,” I remind her.
She rolls her bottom lip out in a pout. It’s adorable. Almost cute enough for me to forget about this whole lovemaking thing. Almost.
With my head on my hand, my weight now next to her instead of on top, I trail my fingertips across her skin.
I watch the way the goose bumps pop up and her breath becomes uneven.
Valentina does some exploring of her own, squeezing and smoothing my muscles with her hands.
She starts with my arms and back, and then digs her fingers into my hair and scrapes my scalp with her nails.
I push her thighs open and trail my hand up higher.
She gasps and moves her hips so that I’m back where she wants me.
She’s wet. Not from the bath but from wanting me.
It’s that knowledge that has me rolling on to her and bringing one of her knees up and to the side.
Her arms slide around my neck and she smiles lazily up at me.
A rose petal falls off her arm and drops in her mouth.
She sputters and spits it out. I can’t hold back the laugh and soon she’s joining me.
“Okay, well, the rose petals are pretty. Maybe not practical,” she says wryly.
“How about this for practical?” I notch my cock at her entrance and slowly push my way in.
Her eyelids droop downward and she lifts her hips to get me there sooner. “Yes, please,” she sighs as we both forget about the rose petals sticking to our skin.
I take things slow, the steady rhythm one I’ve never really taken with a woman, always in too big of a rush to get her and myself across the finish line.
I take the time to notice things I wouldn’t otherwise.
The way her eyes squeeze shut and then open like she doesn’t want to miss a thing.
The subtle rose blush that creeps across her chest. The teeth that bite into her lush bottom lip.
The mess of dark hair that looks like it was made for my pillow.
I can feel when she’s close. Her fingers grab my hair, her heels digging for purchase across my hips and back.
“Deuce,” she whispers, voice low and scraping across my skin.
“Yeah, baby. I’ve got you.”
“Faster. Please.”
It’s the please that gets me. It’s the only thing that would make me plunge in and out of her faster, harder.
I want to give her everything. Except her grunts and moans at the increased pace fan the flames and soon she’s shifted across the bed.
The headboard is hitting the wall and I’m pretty sure the comforter fell off the end of the bed awhile ago.
“Deuce!” She’s yelling this time, her core muscles squeezing me tight.
Her fingers let go of my hair and her arms flail out to the side. Her head digs backward into the pillow and I bury my face in the long curve of her neck. Her body arches up into me, and as I feel her flutter around me, I let go, falling with her. For her. Always her.
Waves of pleasure hit hard, lapping at me for long moments as we both try to breathe through it. I’m chanting her name against her neck, trying to hold back the words I really want to say.
“Oh shit!”
My eyes fly open in alarm, body sated and like a dead weight over her. It’s like an out-of-body experience. It’s happening but my brain doesn’t believe it.
I see fire dancing next to us.
We both freeze, staring at the yellow flames like we’re on a camping trip staring into the fire with marshmallows on a stick. Except we’re not camping. And there’s no marshmallows. And no fire ring to contain the flames.
“Fuck!”
I push off of Valentina, cursing again when I slide out of her and scramble to the side of the bed.
Her shirt is on fire.
The shirt that was discarded on the nightstand. The same nightstand where I lit a candle to increase the romantic vibes. The candle which is now engulfed in flames, hot wax dripping everywhere.
I run to the bathroom and scoop up some water from the bath I haven’t drained yet with a crystal vase that’s only there for decorating purposes.
By the time I run back into the bedroom, Valentina is also on her feet, glaring at the flames like they might gutter out just from sensing her irritation.
I fling the water on the flames, and with a giant hiss and puff of black smoke, it goes out.
Water drips off the nightstand and onto the rug below.
Valentina and I stand there, naked, observing the wreckage. She still has rose petals sticking to her skin. She turns to me with tears streaming down her cheeks, but not fearful like I thought she’d be.
She’s laughing.
She doubles over, her hands going to my chest for support as she wheezes.
“Oh my God! Our lovemaking almost burned down your house!”