Chapter Twenty-Two #2
He nibbled his way down her body and dipped his tongue in her navel. The light, teasing kisses he pressed along her hip made her squirm.
“Be still,” he warned as he licked up her thigh. “Or I’ll have to start again from the top.” When she complied willingly, he enjoyed that in this one instance, he exerted some control over her.
“Please,” she moaned.
“There are those society manners,” he murmured, before his mouth seized her core.
Her taste was intoxicating; his lust swelled as she cried out and rocked her hips. His erection was hard to the point of pain, but he didn’t care. He was determined to prolong her pleasure.
Diana screamed his name as she climaxed, but he’d no intention of relenting until she was as addled with desire as he was. He tasted and nipped at her luscious cleft until she pushed him away.
“Now, Ian.” She gasped.
He caressed her face and brushed aside the trickle of perspiration that trailed down her throat. As eager as he was to fulfill her command, he abhorred the idea of hurting her, even a little. “One word, and I’ll stop.”
“I know.” She pressed a kiss into his hand. “Now hurry and deflower me. Don’t wait another second.”
Slowly, he entered her. Her tight, wet heat around the tip of his cock made his head reel but before he could give over to the craving to move, a faint gasp stopped him cold.
As he started to withdraw, Diana’s warm hand clamped on his arse. “Don’t stop, please. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
She raised her chin in stubborn defiance, as determined to conquer her pain as she was to overcome any challenge.
He shook off the searing way it stoked him and reminded himself of his vow to protect her. Even from himself.
He stroked her hipbone in a soothing caress. “Relax, love. Here.” He kneaded her muscles gently. On her exhale, he felt her resistance give and he pushed in further.
“That’s it. You’re so tight, but your skin is soft,” he rasped. “You feel incredible, Diana.”
She moaned again, and then he was fully sheathed inside her.
“Oh, God,” she breathed.
He nuzzled her neck, as she adjusted to him.
“Yes, oh, that’s better,” she murmured. “There’s hardly any pain now.”
He leaned down and kissed her, and she took possession of his mouth. Between jagged breaths, she declared, “I’m ready now.”
Slowly, he stirred his hips, testing his control and her response. It took everything for him to rasp, “Good?”
“So good,” she affirmed breathlessly. “More. Please, Ian, I can’t stand it.”
He wrapped her leg around his hip and picked up his rhythm. As his thrusts grew more intent, he held onto the edge of restraint. Every exercise, all the training he’d undertaken to master control of his body had been to prepare him for this moment of bliss.
Another night, he’d show her his devil side.
Tonight, he stood at the gates of heaven.
She cupped his face. “How could we deny ourselves this for so long?”
“Never again,” he vowed.
Her hips drew him closer and she bucked against him with delicious friction. “Don’t hold back. I know you’re at the edge with me, darling.”
He pumped in and out of her, and her hoarse cries endangered the thin hold he had over his control. “That’s it, bella tesora. You’re so close, but I’m a selfish devil.” He slowed his pace. “I’ve wanted this so long, I want it to last forever.”
A glimpse of that dream unfolded before him, and he grew heady with the image of staying in bed, never needing to leave her.
With a wanton groan, Diana scraped her nails down his back. “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”
“Then touch yourself,” he commanded.
Her fingers grazed the place where they were joined, and his climax approached. He folded his hand on top of hers, to give her the pressure he knew she loved. She came with a shattering cry that gave him wild satisfaction.
He had scarcely enough time to withdraw and spend his own release between the sheets.
Diana reached for him. He folded her into his arms while they both regained their breath and buried his face against her hair to ground himself.
When she shifted, her sharp gasp made his chest ache.
“I’m sorry for the pain, love,” he murmured.
“It’s over now,” she whispered. “And what came after was the best pleasure I’ve ever known.”
He grunted in agreement; the words to describe what had transpired between them surpassed him. “Shall I draw you a bath?” Despite her assurances, she had to be sore. He’d taken care to withdraw, but they were both damp with perspiration and remnants of their bed sport.
“That would involve getting up, and I don’t want this moment to end.”
“It won’t.” He traced a hand down her arm to caress her silky skin. “This is just the beginning for us.”
He believed it now. In a way he hadn’t dared to before.
They rested quietly while Ian absently played with her hair, letting her russet-brown locks sift through his fingers like water.
Diana caressed the ink on his chest. “I remember the first time I saw this. It was that summer it was so hot, the one before they sent you away to school. I must have been only seven or eight. We escaped to the shore before anyone noticed we were gone. You’d taken off your shirt to jump in the waves and I gawked at the mark before my governess found us and dragged me back inside.
Later, I asked Papa if you had a tattoo and he said, ‘Of course not,’ but I argued you did because all true pirates had tattoos. ”
“My staunch defender.” He laughed. “When Alberti knew he didn’t have long to live, he inked it himself. I was barely three years old.”
“Good God. Did it hurt?”
“Like the devil. My mother was horrified when she found out. Alberti told her he wanted everyone to know they were both under his protection, even when he was gone. But I don’t think she ever forgave him for it.”
Diana continued stroking his chest lazily. Her voice was thick with drowsiness when she said, “Your father played Il Gioco to win your mother, didn’t he?”
“No one has ever confirmed it. And it’s barbaric to me that anyone would trade in human lives like they’re commodities.” He sighed. “From what I gather, my father was playing to free her. It all happened before they…formed an attachment.”
When she scoffed, he chided her with a squeeze before amending, “A physical attachment.”
“Everyone remembers how beautiful your mother was. But the only thing my mother could ever talk about was the way your father looked at her. As though she hung the stars and the moon and the sun altogether. They must have loved each other very much.”
“They were happy,” he agreed. It surprised him that he could admit this without pain. In fact, the idea warmed him. “I witnessed it every day of the short time we had together. I’ve never stopped wanting it back. Which makes me a fool.”
“If you are, then everyone else is too.”
“After all my time in the shadows…I’m not sure I fully understand how to live that kind of life.”
He hoped she’d understand what he couldn’t come out and say: he was terrified that if she committed her life to his, he would let her down.
“I disagree, darling. You’ve shown me the complete opposite.”
Diana gently tugged his chin and sealed her mouth against his. He parted her lips easily and slipped his tongue inside, greedy for her taste again.
When she withdrew to place a tender kiss over his heart, she murmured, “The rest of the world doesn’t matter. Wherever I’m with you, however we choose to live, I’m home.”