Julia
Chapter Fifteen
Ricardo is inside me.
The thought fills me the same way he does. There is pressure first. A deep stretch. A burn that makes my breath catch and my fingers dig into the blanket beneath me.
Then there is more.
More heat. More weight. More of him than I know what to do with.
My body is a taut wire, humming with tension.
He is still above me, holding himself back with an effort I can feel in every locked muscle of his body.
His arms bracket my head. His chest rises and falls against mine.
His jaw is tight, his eyes fixed on my face, watching for the smallest sign that I need him to stop.
He is so careful with me.
That is what breaks something open in my chest.
He could move. He could take. He could let instinct win.
He does none of those things.
He stays buried deep inside me, giving my body time to understand him, accept him, and in that stillness, I feel everything. The fire warming my skin. The storm beyond the windows. His thick cock buried deep inside my damp heat.
The frantic beating of my own heart against my ribs.
And the feel of him, so deep inside me, it feels like he's touching my soul.
His eyes are locked on mine, and in their depths, I see not just desire, but a tenderness that takes my breath away. He is not just taking from me. He is giving to me. He is giving me this moment, this experience, this reclamation.
I bring my hands up from where they were clutching the blanket, and I touch him. My palms slide up his sweat-slicked back, feeling the powerful muscles beneath my skin. I trace the line of his spine, the broadness of his shoulders.
He is real. This is real.
And it is beautiful.
I feel a single tear escape from the corner of my eye, tracking a hot path down my temple.
Ricardo sees it. His brow furrows and concern cuts through the desire in his eye.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks, voice rough.
I shake my head.
His body remains completely still. “Then why are you crying, cuore mio?”
"Because..." I have to pause, swallow past the lump in my throat. "Because I didn't know it could be like this."
He studies my face, and I feel him twitch inside me. The small movement sends heat rolling through my stomach.
"Like what?" he prompts gently.
"Like... I'm here," I say, my voice barely a whisper. "Really, truly here. In my own body. With you."
A slow, seductive smile spreads across his face.
"Good," he says. "Then let's make sure you stay here."
He lowers his mouth to mine.
The kiss is slow. He gives me a moment to breathe into it, to settle into the feel of him, to stop bracing for pain and start trusting the pleasure.
Then he starts to move.
The first withdrawal of his cock is so slow it makes my fingers tighten against his back, leaving me aching, empty, desperate. He pulls almost all the way out, until just the head of him is still inside me, holding me open.
He holds himself there for a heartbeat, two, his eyes burning into mine, letting the anticipation build.
I am trembling, anticipating, aching for him to fill me again.
Then he pushes back in, a slow thrust that sheathes him in the warmth of my pussy once again.
A gasp tears out of me. My back arches. The stretch, the fullness, the delicious friction as he fills every part of me.
He does it again. And again.
Each thrust teaches my body something new. The stretch is still there, but now it carries pleasure with it. He is not just fucking me. He is making love to me. With every thrust, he is rewriting my history, replacing the memory of duty and obligation with the reality of desire and devotion.
My body takes over. My hips rise to meet his in a rhythm as old as time. My hands slide down his back, my nails digging into the hard muscles of his buttocks, pulling him deeper, harder.
I lift my legs, wrapping them around his waist, pulling him deeper, taking more of him.
A low groan rumbles in his chest.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against my ear. “Take what you need.”
His words are a key, turning a lock inside me I didn't even know was there. Take what you need. The permission is so foreign, so revolutionary, that it breaks something open inside me. A dam.
My body arches off the blanket, a deep, guttural moan tearing from my throat. It's a sound I've never made before, a sound that stems from primal hunger. It's the sound of a woman who has been starving and is finally being fed.
I feel a fresh flood of wetness, coating him, making him slick, making it easier for him to move, faster, deeper.
His control slips for one second. I feel it in the sharper drive of his hips, in the groan he buries against my throat, in the way his hand grips my thigh and holds me open for him.
Then he finds the rhythm, picks up the pace just enough to satisfy but not enough to hurt.
I can feel the tension building again, that low, simmering heat that is now a raging inferno. It's building faster this time, stronger, more intense.
I am no longer in control. I am a creature of pure sensation, lost in the storm of pleasure he is unleashing upon me.
There is only Ricardo above me, inside me, around me. His breath at my ear. His weight pressing me into the blankets. The feel of him inside me, the sound of our bodies slapping together, the scent of our sweat and sex, the firelight flickering on the walls.
I am on the edge. I can feel it. A precipice, dizzying and terrifying and exhilarating.
I can hear myself so clearly as moans and cries fall from my lips.
Ricardo’s mouth finds my ear.
“Such beautiful sounds,” he says. “I want to hear you scream.”
My pussy tightens around him at the words. He groans, and his thrusts grow harder.
My body answers. It knows him now. It opens for him, takes him, pulls him in. Every time he sinks deep inside me, pleasure flashes through me with a force that makes my eyes close.
“No,” he growls. “Look at me.”
My eyes fly open.
He is right there. Dark-eyed. Beautiful. Barely restrained.
Watching me as if this matters to him. As if I matter. As if my pleasure is something he can feel in his own body.
"Ricardo," I gasp, my nails digging into his skin. "I'm... I'm..."
"I know," he growls. "Let go, Julia. Let go for me."
His hand slides between us. His thumb finds my swollen clit and circles.
My body tightens instantly.
“Oh God,” I groan.
“That’s it,” he says. “Come for me.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.”
He thrusts deeper, and his thumb keeps moving, and the pleasure snaps tight enough to steal my breath.
The orgasm that crashes over me is blinding. It's not a gentle wave. It's a tsunami, a violent, all-consuming force that rips me apart and puts me back together again, in a new and better shape.
My body bows beneath his, every muscle locking as the pleasure breaks open and takes me under. I clutch at him, helpless, shaking, my nails dragging over his back while wave after wave moves through me.
He stays with me through all of it.
He does not rush. He does not take his own release and leave me behind. He slows, deepens, gives me every stroke while my body clenches around him. His mouth is against my temple, my cheek, my lips, murmuring things I can barely understand.
A scream is torn from my lips, a raw, primal sound that I don't recognize as my own. My body convulses, my inner muscles clamping down on him, milking him, drawing him deeper.
But he's not done with me.
I expect him to bury himself deep in me and let go, finish, but that's not what he does.
He rides out my orgasm, his thrusts slowing, but not stopping. He lets me come down from the high, his body still moving inside me, keeping the pleasure alive inside me in a way that is every bit as intoxicating as the explosive climax.
I am boneless, spent, a puddle of limbs beneath him. But he is still hard inside me, not nearly done.
He kisses me once, softly.
Then he pulls out.
I whimper at the loss before I can stop myself.
His mouth curves against mine. “I am not finished with you.”
Before I can answer, he rolls onto his back and takes me with him.
The world tilts and whirls. Suddenly I am above him, straddling his hips, my knees pressed into the blanket on either side of his hips.
The gasp is caught in my throat.
Ricardo lies beneath me, naked and flushed, his hair mussed from my hands, his chest rising beneath my palms. His cock rests hard and slick against me, and the sight of him like this nearly undoes me.
Powerful.
Patient.
Mine to touch.
His hands settle on my waist, and I know what he wants.
He wants me to take control.
For a moment, I panic. I don't know what to do. I've never been in this position before.
"Ride me, Julia," he says, his voice low and seductive yet commanding. "Take your pleasure."
The words send heat rushing through me, but my stomach tightens too. I have no idea what I am doing. I have never been on top like this. I have never been given this kind of room. This kind of power.
Ricardo’s thumbs stroke my sides.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do.
“There is no wrong way,” he murmurs. “Only what feels good.”
My breath leaves me in a shaky rush.
He guides my hips, helping me to rise up on my knees, until I am hovering over him.
"Just feel,” he says. His hand slides between us, guiding himself to me. The head of his cock presses against my entrance, thick and hot.
Then, he pulls me down, slowly, until he is buried inside me again.
A gasp escapes my lips. The stretch is even more intense this way. Somehow, he feels even bigger and deeper this way. My fingers spread over his sweat-slicked chest as I take him inch by inch.
He watches me the whole time, jaw clenched, eyes burning, letting me set the pace even though every part of him looks strained from holding back.
When I am finally seated fully on him, I stop.
He is so deep.
I can feel him everywhere again, but this time I am the one above him. I am the one holding still. I am the one with my hands on his chest and his body beneath mine.
His hands flex on my hips. I can feel the steady, strong beat of his heart under my hands.
“Beautiful,” he rasps.
The word sends a shiver through me.
I move by instinct, a small roll of my hips.
Pleasure flickers.
Ricardo’s eyes darken. “Yes, just like that.”
I do it again until I find a rhythm that I like, one that grinds my clit against the hard base of his cock.
The pleasure is immediate.
"That’s perfect," he murmurs, his hands now moving up my sides, to cup my breasts, his thumbs brushing over my nipples.
I throw my head back, my hair a fiery cascade down my back, and I let go. I let my body take over, my hips moving in a sinuous, primal dance that is as old as time.
I am no longer thinking. I am no longer second-guessing. I am no longer a shy, insecure woman who is afraid of her own desires.
I am a goddess, riding my consort, claiming my pleasure, my power.
I am Aphrodite, born of the sea foam, rising from the ashes of my past, beautiful and strong and unafraid.
And Ricardo is my Adonis, my Zeus, my Ares. He is the god of this new world I am creating, the god who is showing me the way, the god who is giving me the strength to become the woman I was always meant to be.
“Dio, Julia,” he groans. “Just like that.”
The praise goes straight through me.
I move faster.
His hands drop to my hips, helping now, lifting and lowering me, guiding me into a rhythm that makes both of us breathe harder. My thighs burn. My body aches. The pleasure keeps rising anyway, sharp and deep and relentless.
I lean forward, needing him closer.
He sits up at once, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulling me close, until my breasts are pressed against his chest, and our bodies are flush against each other. His mouth covers mine, and he swallows my cry.
Our kiss is hungry, desperate. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, possessing me, and I kiss him back with a hunger that is just as fierce.
My hands slide up his chest, to tangle in his hair, holding him to me as I continue to ride him, my hips grinding against him, faster, harder, my body moving with a wild, desperate rhythm that is born of need and instinct.
The pleasure is building again, a low, simmering heat that is quickly becoming a raging inferno. I can feel the tension coiling in my stomach, a tight knot that is just waiting to unravel.
His hand slides into my hair, and he grips it tight. I cry out helplessly, the pleasure unbearable now.
I am so close.
“Come with me,” he says.
"I can't," I gasp against his lips. "I can't..."
"You can," he growls, his hands now on my ass, pulling me down harder, faster. "You will. With me. Let go, Julia. Let go with me."
He drives up into me at the same time.
The pleasure spikes so hard I lose my breath.
“Ricardo—”
“Now,” he orders. “Come now!”
And with those words, the last of my control shatters.
I come with a scream, a wild, primal sound that is ripped from my very soul. My body convulses, my inner muscles clamping down on him, milking him, drawing him deeper, deeper, deeper.
And this time, he lets go too.
He curses in Italian against my throat, and he thrusts hard into me a moment before I feel him spill into me. It’s a hot, powerful rush that fills me, completes me, seals us together.
His orgasm quickly pushes me to another release, this one bone-shattering and mind-numbing. I throw my head back and scream his name as, for one endless moment, I am in a world of complete blissful sensation.
Then all at once, it’s over, and my body collapses against his, boneless and trembling. My breath explodes against his skin in ragged gasps, and my head drops to his shoulder as my arms drop from his shoulders.
For a long time, neither of us moves.
Mostly because we can’t.
The storm keeps raging outside. The fire crackles beside us. His heart beats under my cheek, strong and uneven, slowly coming down from the same height as mine.
I am exhausted.
I am sore.
I am shaking.
And I have never felt more alive.
Ricardo’s arms stay locked around me. One hand strokes slowly up and down my back, soothing now.
I press my face closer to his throat and breathe him in.
There is no checklist in my head. No dread. No shame waiting to crawl back in.
Only heat. Skin. Breath.
Only him.
Only me, still here in my own body.
I close my eyes, and the certainty settles deep inside me.
Something has changed.
Something I cannot tuck away again.
And whatever happens after this, I know one thing with terrifying clarity:
I will never be able to unknow what it feels like to be loved by Ricardo Conti.