Chapter 9 #2
Unlike the speedboat, there was no crew on the yacht, meaning that once she was on board, Luca took care of all the logistics to untether the craft from the pontoon and set their course into the calm ocean surrounding the island.
The moon was high and gloriously full, the shimmering silver casting a beacon over the water that the boat seemed to instinctively follow.
There was a distant humming, the sound of the party winding down, soft strains of music and tinkling laughter.
Ally stayed on the deck, enjoying the feeling of the balmy evening air on her skin and in her hair as they went, the sensation only adding to the sensuality of the moment.
When the island was just a silhouette in the distance, the festoon lights from the party like tiny golden specks, Luca cut the engine.
The silence was deafening for a moment, so Ally turned around quickly, and then became aware of the lapping of waves against the sides, the rhythm of the boat as it rocked gently.
She was, in fact, hyperaware of everything, and she knew why.
His touch.
That one single glimmer of contact had made her whole body catch fire.
And it hadn’t stopped burning. The rush of sea air had helped a little, but now that the engine had stopped and he was standing a few feet away, staring at her, bathed in moonlight, her skin broke out in goosebumps and the waiting was a form of agony.
Slowly, painfully slowly, he started to walk towards her and Ally held her breath, or rather, it stuck in her throat.
She could only watch as he covered the distance between them and then drew her into his arms, pulling her hard against his body, his touch rough in a way she craved. She gasped, need ripping her apart.
“I want to make you scream. I want you to scream and know no one can hear you. I want you to give into every single one of your feelings, your wants, I want you to be completely free to abandon yourself to this.” He lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips.
“I want to show you everything you’ve missed out on, Allegra. ”
She shivered both at his promise and at the way her name sounded on his lips.
“I want that too.” Her voice was just a husk. She could hardly form words; her brain had lost all its power.
“But you must promise me something.”
“I know. This doesn’t mean anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “Good, but that’s not what I was going to say.”
She waited for him to continue.
His hands caught at her nightgown, the long, floaty material soft against her skin. It hadn’t even occurred to her to change when they’d left the house; she’d been too flummoxed, too overwhelmed, too hyped by adrenaline.
“If you want to stop, at any point, you must say so. It might not feel like it, but you are in control of this. You are in control of me.”
Her heart stammered. The reassurance felt unnecessary—she didn’t doubt she could trust him. But she nodded, because he was looking at her without moving, waiting for her to verbally agree.
“Yes, okay,” she said.
He nodded once, staring down at her, not moving. Her heart stammered.
A beat later, though, he was lifting her nightgown up her sides, slowly, so the sea breeze teased her legs as he went.
His fingers grazed her hips, then the lace of her underwear, and then higher still, to the underside of her breasts.
She trembled and his lips tightened into something like a smile.
She closed her eyes as he lifted the nightgown from her head, and tossed it onto the deck of the boat, so that she stood before him naked except for her beautiful underpants, and the slides she’d pulled on when they’d left his room.
His Adam’s apple shifted visibly as he stood back and stared at her, his dark eyes glittering in his handsome face as he undertook a deliberate and slow inspection.
She shivered all over, yet she felt warm from fingertip to toe.
“We’re going to take this slowly.”
She groaned, shaking her head. “No. I want—,”
He lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips. “I know what you want.” He dragged his finger over her lower lip. Her stomach twisted.
“You want to feel as though your world is tilting, and I’m going to show you how.”
She trembled all over.
“Turn around, Allegra.”
His command was hers to follow. She did as he said, kicking out of her shoes as she moved to face the island once more.
He came to stand behind her, his body hard, angular, pressing into her. A moan thickened in her throat as his hand cupped one of her breasts, touching her there for the first time and making her cry out at the welcome euphoria of the unfamiliar contact.
“Shh,” he said, dropping his head and kissing the curve of her neck.
“I thought you wanted to hear me scream.”
She felt his smile flicker against her skin. “Oh, I do.” His other hand moved to her hip and then travelled towards her belly button, tremors flinching on her skin as he went. He slid his hand into the elastic of her pants and she cried out—more unfamiliar.
“Stop?” he said, but he was teasing her. She shook her head frantically.
“Good girl,” he muttered, fingers moving lower, parting her sex, finding her most sensitive cluster of nerves and moving slowly over it, painfully slowly, so she whimpered with the growing need that was flooding her body.
“More,” she cried, arching her back and lifting one arm up to reach around behind his head, gripping him there.
His hand on her breast moved to the other, touching her more firmly now, there, and down lower, so she couldn’t think with all the sensations that were rioting through her.
She couldn’t do anything but teeter on the brink of a heady explosion.
His hand at her sex shifted and she cried out, the feeling of his fingers and his palm pressing into her making stars explode behind her eyes. She didn’t realise she was crying out, filling the air with moans until he murmured, “Yes, cara, yes, abandon yourself to this.”
And so she did. As he said, she let herself go completely, disconnecting her brain so her feelings and sensations had full reign, letting them pummel her body, rain over her, take her somewhere she’d never known possible.
“Oh my God,” she cried, staring at the stars then squeezing her eyes shut as wave after wave of feeling built inside of her and then burst. She was vaguely aware of digging her nails into the back of his neck, of holding onto him as though terrified of how incredible this felt, but she couldn’t stop.
She was caught on the most enormous tidal wave, simultaneously floating and drowning, lost and found.
“Luca!” His name was a curse and a plea.
He held her close, whispering in Italian, so in the recesses of her brain still capable of performing basic functions, she wanted desperately to learn this language.
She might only have been planning to live in Italy for a year, but she wanted to hear Luca in his own language, to hear him. “Yes, Luca.”
And he held her close as the stars in her eyes faded away again and slowly, the outside world came back into view. It was the perfect beginning to what he wanted to show her, but it was exactly that: a beginning, and they both knew it.