Chapter Three
Maria came back to herself, slowly. Breath by breath, her pulse thundering.
Her body, almost painfully sensitive to everything around her, the light, the feel of the wall against her back, the neckline of her basque digging into the soft slopes of her breasts, and Micha.
Between her legs, still, taking little sips from her that sent shock waves through her body again and again.
Her hands were still fisted in his hair, her traitorous body doing its own thing, holding him to her.
She tried to think about what she’d done, but she couldn’t because pleasure was still coursing through her body, carried thick and heavy in her bloodstream.
She wasn’t done, and she knew that Micha most definitely wasn’t done.
She’d felt the ridge of his arousal, through the superfine wool of his trousers.
The powerful, steely length of him. And now she wanted that.
Micha Rufina had turned her into a sensual voracious monster and it didn’t matter. Because after today, she would never see him again.
And rather than focusing on how that made her feel, she chose to focus on what that meant for her.
On the fact that maybe, finally, she could take whatever she wanted from him.
One final and only chance, to know what it was like, to explore everything she possibly could before never having to see him again.
It was liberating. It was freeing. She could do anything.
She could ask for anything. Demand it. All the fantasies that he’d taunted her about.
She could have them. This night. Oh, she knew he wouldn’t deny her a single thing.
Because he’d had fantasies too. She’d seen them in his eyes when he’d looked at her.
Her fingers flexed in his hair, before tugging him back. She looked down at him, at his mouth, glistening with her own desire. He licked his lower lip without taking his eyes from her and her heart pounded painfully in her chest.
He ran a thumb over the curve of his bottom lip, and drew himself from his knees to stand before her, forcing her to crane her head back to keep the eye contact that was driving her near wild with want.
‘What?’ she asked, trying to unearth the indefinable look in his gaze that was something like surprise. ‘Did you think I’d leave now?’
‘Yes,’ he replied with the brutal honesty that had dominated their entire exchange that evening.
‘I’m not leaving until this is well and truly done,’ she said, the words landing like unexploded bombs between them.
‘Are you sure, cara?’ he asked, loosening the tie at his neck with two vicious yanks, her eyes hungering for the sight of a chest that had been impressive eleven years before but now would be incredible.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Va bene,’ he replied, pulling his tie completely free with a snap.
Her fingers dug for purchase into the wall behind her as he freed his shirt buttons, reversing the way that she had stripped for him earlier.
He tugged the shirt free of his belted waist, as his eyes roamed downward from her face to her chest, her legs, her feet.
She was achingly conscious she was still wearing her Louboutins, and in her undone basque she felt carnal.
Erotic. The way his skin flushed as his gaze devoured her, made her feel dizzyingly high.
He shucked the shirt from his shoulders, and kicked off his shoes, toeing off his socks, and stood before her, his hands tackling the black leather belt with a ruthless efficiency that cracked the air as he removed it from his trousers.
The ridge of his arousal proud and powerful against the fine wool material, nothing self-conscious about him, he eased the taut material apart by flicking the button and releasing the zip just a touch.
He stood bearing her scrutiny as she had borne his, presumably understanding her fascination, her desire.
Not only to take in the changes of eleven years, but to relish the impact, the power it had on her.
The dips and curves of his body, ones that she wanted to mould with her hands and her mouth, the way she imagined wrapping herself around him. Wanting to.
She left the security of the wall and stalked towards him, his gaze on her hers, his hands fisting at his sides, the only sign he was as affected by her as she was him.
Instead of coming face to face with him, she circled around behind him.
And finally she let herself indulge—perhaps unaware that it was easier for her to do so when he couldn’t see the sheer enjoyment she took from his body.
Her fingers moulded and pressed into his shoulders, her lips tracing the trap muscles down from his neck, and towards the juncture of his waist. Her hands explored the sides of his chest and around the front, feeling their way across his abdomen and the hollow lines between his hips and the lower abdominals.
She encased him perfectly to feel how he responded to her and she felt the breath lock in his chest, despite his taunting arrogant confidence.
His shoulders tensed against her breasts and, as her hands dipped lower, as she palmed him boldly over his trousers, the rumble of the growl in his throat sent shivers down her spine, the way he fought with himself not to push back against her hand and the fact that he had even done so.
But she wanted him to lose that fight. Like she had.
She wanted him desperate and begging. Pleading for release.
So, she came around to face him and just like he had, she dropped to her knees.
A string of curses turned the air a shocking vivid blue as he tried to stop her. But it was too late. This was what she wanted. What she’d always wanted.
She flicked his hands away and instead, slowly pulled the zipper down, parting the sides of his trousers and guiding them from his hips.
The black briefs, close to his skin, cupped every single part of him lovingly, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.
She bit her lip, a last moment of hesitation—not doubt, never doubt—before she swept those from around his waist, down over the musculature of his backside, and letting the hard, throbbing steel of him free.
She took him in her hand first, the soft velvet of his skin so deceptive of the restrained power she knew, she knew, was there.
She gripped him gently, but firmly, as she lowered her fist to the base of him, the guttural exhale teasing her own arousal back to life.
His hand fell to her shoulder, anchoring him, when she felt the tiny tremors across his body begin, and so it was with a smile that she took him into her mouth, closing around the blunt tip of his penis, and humming her pleasure around the thick, heavy, hot feel of him.
‘Madonna mia.’
And honestly, Maria couldn’t tell whether she’d thought it or he’d said it. He felt incredible in her mouth as she sucked and drew down on him. The power of what it did to him.
A hand fisted her hair, and she loved it—flexing and tightening, urging her on, or holding her back, it was a hardline into the wants and needs she’d never allow herself to voice.
His hips bucked, slowly at first, tentatively until she drove him ragged with teeth that gently and carefully scraped across the corona of his penis, her tongue testing the little nerve beneath it. The sound he made was unholy, sending fireworks across her skin and to her overly sensitised core.
More curses filled the air. ‘Basta!’ he demanded, pulling away from her. It was small, but it was enough. But they both knew that he’d broken first. But she’d needed that, because he’d made her beg.
Oh, he was going to make her pay for that. It had taken absolutely everything in Micha to pull back from the brink of an orgasm that would have come far too hard and far too soon, and the sight of her still on her knees looking up at him, wide knowing eyes, was too damn much.
‘Get up,’ he ordered, turning his back, unable to keep looking at her like that and retain his control.
‘Please,’ she taunted from behind him and he cursed again, knowing that she’d stay right there until he said it.
On his lips, the word sounded feral, closer to a growl, but it was enough. He saw her rise to her feet in the reflection of the window. The low lighting of the penthouse office would have displayed them for all of Paris to see, if they hadn’t been so far out of reach from any prying eyes.
But when he turned to find her standing in the middle of his office, barely covered by what remained of her basque, he thought for the first time that entire exchange that he’d seen a moment of vulnerability.
He nearly let loose the bitter laugh that filled his throat.
She had no idea what she did to him. What he would do for her.
What he had done for her. And before he could stop himself, he’d closed the distance between them and taken her in his arms and with his mouth.
He’d swept her up against him, her thighs coming around his waist, ankles locking together, her hair tumbling around them in a cocoon.
‘You don’t want this, at any point,’ he said between kisses that bruised and punished them equally, ‘you stop. You say it. You tell me to stop,’ he commanded.
‘Like I’d have a problem with that,’ she dismissed.
‘This isn’t a contest cara, I’m serious,’ he said, flexing the grip on her thigh in warning.
He glared up at her, their dark gazes clashing and sparking, but she saw the moment the bravado fell away, and the tumble of tendrils shivered as she shook her head.