Chapter Nine #2
Staring into his eyes, she had watched the high walls go up but only seen them as barriers to block her out. She hadn’t seen them for what they really were. Hadn’t realised that Ettore was protecting himself from further pain, even though she was doing exactly the same thing.
‘I made such a mess of everything.’
‘No.’ Now it was his turn to sound insistent and unshakeable. ‘Look at me, dolcezza.’ He slid his hands into her hair and tilted her face up to his and reluctantly she met his gaze. ‘We both made a mess of everything. But the most important word in that sentence is not mess, but “we”.’
Her heart was beating wildly. ‘But this isn’t real.’
‘Isn’t it?’ His voice was soft, his caress softer still as he stroked her cheek.
‘We’re here in Paris, just the two of us.
Right now, this feels more real than anything.
And yes, we messed things up and we walked away from the mess me made.
But we aren’t meant to be apart, Dulcie.
That’s why we found each other again. And it’ll work this time, I promise, because we’ve held nothing back. There’re no barriers between us now.
His words made a bubble of happiness rise up inside her.
She leaned into his hand like a cat, then turned it so that she could kiss his palm. Gently she twisted the ring on his finger.
‘You matter to me. You always mattered to me. Even when I hated you for breaking my heart. You know, all the girls at my school used to talk about “the one”. This mythical man you would see across a crowded room and boom. That would be it. And because I’m a scientist, I just thought, yeah right.
That’s never going to happen to me. Only then I saw you at the airport and I thought it was the storm making me shake.
But it was you. You made me shake inside. ’
‘When I saw you, I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was having a heart attack. You were holding a teddy bear, and you were turning round as if you were looking for someone.’
She frowned. ‘I forgot about the teddy. It was lying on the pavement when I got out of the taxi. Someone must have dropped it by mistake.’
Ettore was shaking his head. ‘I was so scared that your husband was somewhere with the baby, and you were trying to spot them in the crowd.’
‘No baby. No husband.’ Her fingers splayed out over his wrists, and she felt his pulse twitch. ‘I wasn’t looking for anyone. Not then, not ever. Not until I saw you, and then I couldn’t look away.’
His eyes were all pupils as he leaned in, tracing the shape of her lips with his tongue.
‘Sweet,’ he murmured. ‘My sweet Dulcie.’
His words vibrated softly against her mouth and something liquid pooled inside her body as he reached up to touch her throat, fitting his thumb into the hollow at the base.
He sucked in a breath, lifted the heavy mass of her hair from her neck and sucked the spot where her pulse was hammering against the delicate skin, as if he were savouring her hunger.
She moaned softly. Heat was drifting up over her face and she felt unanchored with need for him.
‘Ettore…’
She pulled him closer, lost in the hungry press of his mouth and the fluttering waves of pleasure spilling over her skin.
‘Put your hands on me, here.’
She was grabbing for them, but he was already cupping her breasts, trapping the pebble-hard nipples between the middle and index fingers in a way that had her arching forward.
He groaned against her mouth, and she was pulling his shirt free, her shaking fingers tugging at the waistband.
‘Not here.’ She reached for him, but he was shaking his head, laughing softly. ‘Not here, dolcezza.’
With shock, she remembered that they were still outside on the terrace.
He lifted her up, and she curled her legs around his waist, and he carried her back into the bedroom. And then he was pushing the fabric of her dress down from her breasts, and she took a strangled breath as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, his stubble scraping against her skin.
‘I want to undress you,’ he said hoarsely.
She shivered, the directness of his words sending a flickering electric current over her skin. ‘I want that too.’
Heart shuddering, she watched him peel the bodice away from her body, down over her stomach, and then he slid his hands under her bottom, and she felt the warm silk flutter over her thighs.
Stepping back, he stripped off his clothes and then he was naked too, standing there in the softly lit room, his powerful, beautifully muscled body gleaming like bronze, his cock jutting away from his groin.
She stared up at him, her mouth drying. She felt as though she were made of need, and yet she still needed more.
As if he could read her mind, he leaned forward, his mouth finding hers, and he kissed her hungrily and then he slid his thigh between hers, and she felt the jab of his cock against her belly as he nudged her backwards until she half fell, half sat on the bed.
‘Cosa vuoi che faccia? Tell me what you want. Tell me what you like.’
‘I like this.’ Her fingers wrapped around his cock.
He grunted, and she gasped as it swelled to fill her hand.
‘Not as much as I like it,’ he said as she pushed him back against the mattress.
It felt great. But it would taste better and, leaning forward, she shifted her fingers to the base of his cock and licked up the shaft, swirling her tongue over the straining head, up and down, her own hand moving to slide between her thighs.
She moaned softly, because that felt good too, and then Ettore was pulling her back.
‘It’s my turn to taste you,’ he said hoarsely.
He shifted his weight, moving down the bed, and her nipples tightened painfully as he pressed the flat of his palm between her legs and she tried to push back against his hand, only it didn’t happen because Ettore pulled it away but then he lowered his mouth and she felt his tongue dip into the slick, quivering heat like a hummingbird.
She moaned then, and she didn’t know exactly when, but her hand had moved to clutch his hair.
Pleasure was flooding through her like a smooth, fast-flowing river.
The water was roaring in her ears. Or maybe it was her blood.
It kept flowing faster and faster, only now it was undulating too, the swirling currents growing stronger and stronger and faster and stronger…
‘Ettore…’ She moaned out his name, the last syllable hovering in the air.
Her fingers clenched into a fist, pulling his hair tight, and then her spine arched, muscles spasming, as the currents pulled her under and she clung to him because she would drown if she let go.
After what felt like a hundred years but was probably only sixty seconds, Ettore lifted his mouth and moved up her body, and she reached for his cock, guiding him inside her, relishing her power over him as his face creased with the effort of holding back.
He was rock-hard, bigger than he had ever been, and his breath was shallow as he pushed in deeper, stretching her, lifting her higher, pressing her closer.
‘Cazzo.’ He groaned, his eyes glassy, the skin across his cheeks drawn. ‘I’m going to—’
She felt his hand slide down to cup her bottom, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, and a thick, stifled groan erupted from his mouth like the noise an animal might make as he buried his head against her throat.
She felt his body tense and he jerked back in a way that nearly pulled them apart and then he was surging inside her, clutching her against him as she clutched him.
They stayed like that for longer than her brain could keep track of.
An hour, three? It didn’t matter. And all that mattered was that this was real.
Not just the sex, but what she was feeling.
What he was feeling, she thought as he tightened his arms around her and kissed her over and over, his chest rising and falling in time to her heartbeat.
She couldn’t be imagining this, not now. Not with his body so heavy on hers that it was impossible to tell where he ended and she began.
She wasn’t imagining it. The next morning, they woke late and made love until they were exhausted.
Or rather she was exhausted. Ettore had astonishing stamina, Dulcie thought as she watched him swim laps in the suite’s private rooftop pool, feeling drowsy and warm in the Parisian sunshine.
But it was the right kind of drowsiness. Not that fatigue that made her feel as if she were wearing one of those weighted vests but the good kind that was accompanied by an absence of her usual racing thoughts.
She felt calm and clear-headed and alive. You could just say happy, she told herself. Because she was happy.
It was something she couldn’t remember feeling for a long time either. But everything she needed and wanted in her life was here. Her chest tightened. Except her brother. But, fingers crossed, Oscar would reach this same place of calm and certainty one day.
‘Stop it,’ Ettore said softly, dropping down beside her on the sunlounger, his face serious.
‘Stop what?’ Raising her hand to block the sun, she squinted up at him, feeling more than a little envious of the droplets of water that were trickling over his glorious body.
He ran his hand back over his scalp, smoothing the hair. ‘Feeling guilty about Oscar.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she protested. ‘Well, maybe I was a little,’ she confessed as his eyes found hers.
‘We can bring him to Paris when he leaves the clinic if you want.’
‘We could?’
Her voice was high with surprise, and he reached over and tilted up her chin so that their eyes were level. ‘Of course. He’s your brother. I want you to spend time with him. I want to get to know him.’
‘And I can’t wait for Oscar to get to know you too. I want him to know what a lovely man you are.’ She clasped his face with her hands and pressed a clumsy kiss to his mouth. As they broke apart, he shifted his weight forward to pick up a croissant. He held it out to her.
‘You should eat. We’ve got a busy day.’