Chapter 7 #2
Damn it, did the man have to be so perfect? She folded her arms tight across her stomach. ‘Has your mother ever expressed a desire to have an implant? She must be a perfect candidate.’
He nodded. ‘She is. And I really want her to have one but she doesn’t see that there’s anything wrong with her. She has a full life, she can communicate and is quite active in the deaf community back home.’ He shrugged. ‘And I respect that.’
Peyton remembered her struggle with this conundrum, trying to weigh all the pros and cons, hoping she was doing the right thing.
‘Does that make me an awful person? Do you think by going down this path with McKenzie, my daughter will think that I think something is wrong with her?’ She searched his face for an answer.
‘Is it wrong of me to want this for her?’
A frown pulled his dark brows together. Sitting forward, he placed his bowl on the table.
‘Of course not.’ He shook his head. ‘My mother is a firm believer in doing what you feel is best. As am I. I may be biased but it’s indisputable that implants increase options for the deaf. She would be proud of you.’
Peyton felt a trill of pleasure squirm through her belly at the thought of Senora Lombardi’s approval. ‘I bet she’s proud of you.’
He grinned. ‘But of course. Tells everyone about her son the surgeon.’
Peyton laughed. ‘That sounds familiar in any culture.’
‘There it is again,’ he murmured, regarding her with an intensity that simmered in Peyton’s blood. ‘That rare laugh.’
She grinned. ‘It might actually become a habit now.’
His gaze flicked to her shirt where it had fallen off one shoulder, and Peyton’s nipples responded blatantly to his interest, forming two tight points against the fabric.
Friends, Peyton – friends. They’d agreed to be friends.
Returning his attention to her face, he said, ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’
Peyton sobered. So nice. And so very… novel. He held her gaze and it was like being bathed in warm, dark, mineral-laden mud. Pleasurable and good for the body.
‘Did I thank you enough, Valentino?’ she asked, her voice stupidly husky. ‘I don’t know how to thank you enough.’
He shrugged. ‘You don’t have to. It’s my job. Plus, you know, they pay me.’
Peyton smiled at his flippancy, but money seemed like such an inadequate reward for the gift he gave every day. On impulse, she stood and took a step towards him. And then another, until she was standing in front of him.
‘Thank you,’ she said again on a whisper.
Leaning down, she slid her hands to cup either side of his face, her fingers pushing into the luxury of his hair as she pressed her mouth to his in a brief kiss.
It wasn’t meant to be sexual. It really wasn’t. It was meant to be grateful and heartfelt. A thank-you kiss from the bottom of her soul.
A kiss for a friend. Quick in and quick out.
But she should have known she was playing with fire. Because now her senses were filled with him. His food offerings had awakened them to flavour and aroma and texture and she was experiencing them all – his warmth, the scratch of his stubble and the clean male smell of him.
Not even pulling out of the kiss helped because she was incapable of moving away. And now his eyes were on the baggy fall of her shirt, giving him a full-frontal view of her pert naked breasts.
Definitely playing with fire.
He reached out and encircled her wrists with his fingers, and Peyton did not stop him, watching instead the lazy path of his thumb over her pulse point.
There was a brief moment when it was possible to back off, to remember that they’d decided not to do this again.
But it passed. And then she was sinking her knees into the leather either side of his thighs, straddling him, settling herself against him.
And then they were kissing. Like the world was about to end.
And then her shirt was off and his lips were nuzzling a path to her breasts, sucking her nipples deep into the heat and the wet of his mouth, his rough tongue rasping around and around them as they peaked and surged.
And then his shirt followed and she was reaching between his legs, unzipping him, touching the hard ridge of him, rubbing herself against him as she freed him from the prison of his underpants.
He groaned at the touch and Peyton almost sighed out loud to have him in the palm of her hand, thick and needy again.
Her head buzzed with the heady power of it all, completely beyond being able to stop – driven by too many nights of fevered dreams and solo pleasure that was not anywhere near as good as this.
Thrusting into her palm, he muttered, ‘Condom?’ into her chest.
Peyton’s head was spinning. What had he said? Condoms? Her heart was racing as she tried to order her thoughts. But then Valentino sucked a nipple into his mouth and she clung to his shoulder as her brain turned to mush.
‘Condom,’ he said again moments later, releasing her thoroughly worshipped nipple.
Peyton sucked in a breath, pushing her hands into his hair.
Condoms? She almost laughed. Apart from that time with Valentino, who’d come fully prepared, she hadn’t needed a condom since Arnie had left.
Not that they’d used them either. Her ex had always refused to wear one and contraception had become her responsibility.
This house had always been a condom-free zone.
‘I don’t have any.’
He groaned into her neck, muttering a word in Italian she’d heard him say several times that night in the hotel.
Easing apart, they stared at each other, heaving in oxygen, their chests rising and falling.
Long beats passed where there was nothing but the sound of their ragged pants and then, as if something had snapped inside them both, caution was thrown to the wind and they were kissing again, touching, rubbing, sighing, moaning.
Somehow, Peyton wasn’t quite sure how, he manoeuvred her trackpants and underwear off until she was naked astride him, her hands splayed on his bare shoulders.
Levering herself back, she looked down at herself, dizzy with the day’s success and the hot, hard feel of him, not remotely embarrassed by the wantonness of her nudity on full display.
How was this even her? So wild and… free? So bloody uninhibited. But it was. Just like the last time with this man – he brought out the recklessness in her.
She arched her back, thrusting her breasts, earning a quick, sharp inhale from Valentino, which hit her system like a shot of tequila on an empty stomach.
She’d always hated her breasts. They’d always been small and with her weight loss even more so.
But tonight they looked amazing, her nipples dark from the rough tease of Valentino’s tongue and puckered like raspberries beneath his rapt gaze.
He didn’t seem to find them wanting.
Further down, his fingers were spread wide against the angles of her hipbones, bronzed against her paler skin. She could feel them holding her, caging her, branding her, his thumbs circling lazily, stroking the sensitive skin where her hips sloped to her belly.
His erection rose from his open fly and wedged between them, pressing hard against her slick folds. Not joined – not yet. But she needed it. She needed it now.
Raising her eyes, she locked on his as she rose to her knees, rolling her hips again, her slickness gliding along his length.
‘Peyton,’ he groaned, deep and guttural, his fingers biting into her hips as she undulated against him, the centre of her finding the solid head of him.
Easing herself down, she panted and rocked, stretching so damn good, taking him into her body – taking him all the way – on a gasp that shook her to her core.
‘Fuck!’ he cursed in English this time with such rough wonder it was like a sonnet to her ears.
Chest heaving, Peyton pushed back once more, looking down at where they were joined. Where they were one. Where everything was hot and slick and tingling like a fuse ripe for a spark, making her dizzy with desire.
‘That feels so good,’ she said on a ragged pant as she wound her arms around his head, wrapping him close.
How had she forgotten how perfectly they fit?
His mouth found her nipple, sucking it hard as he slowly pulled out an inch or two before pulsing back in. ‘What about that?’ he muttered, hot air puffing against the wet tortured tip.
Peyton bit her lip as the fuse caught. ‘Really good.’
So he did it again and again, barely thrusting at all, his tongue mimicking the torture of the deep slow thrusts.
Peyton whimpered at the sensation, stabbing her fingers into his hair, grasping a fistful and pinning his mouth to her breast as her hips moved of their own volition, sliding down as he thrust up.
His groan vibrated against her nipple as their bodies found their rhythm, one of his hands sliding to her ass, pressing her closer, the other up her back to cup her nape, his fingers furrowing into her hair.
His lips moved north, to her collarbone, the hollow at the base of her throat, the thick wild beat of her carotid pulse.
They were barely moving at all but their slow pulsations created a wonderfully erotic friction that was all consuming – tantric almost – building the tension in Peyton’s belly to screaming point.
When the broad swathe of muscles in his shoulders started to tremble beneath her palms, she whimpered at the corresponding quiver of her own muscles.
The climax that had been on a slow burn suddenly ignited to full throttle.
Peyton gasped out loud as it hit. ‘Valentino,’ she cried, bucking in his arms, throwing her head back at its impact.
‘Yes,’ he groaned, his hand sliding to her shoulder, anchoring her closer still. ‘Quello è ritiene così buon.’
With their joined bodies slick with heat and sweat, Peyton had no idea what he’d just said and neither did she care as they rocked and panted and went to another place entirely where it felt good and right and there was only his name on her lips and only they existed. Where pleasure was the only purpose.
And the consequences be damned.