Chapter 15 #2
“No,” Beatrice whimpered, her eyes fluttering closed. He pressed his lips to hers with none of the frantic pace of their earlier kisses. This time he kissed her slowly, deeply, his lips enticing hers to open and his tongue gently exploring her mouth.
Beatrice felt herself melting inside as she let go of the tension in her shoulders, letting her body be pressed back down into the floor with Giovanni’s firm, warm weight on top of her.
She had become familiar with the furious intensity of his body close to hers, of his hands roving and pushing and his lips pressing so hard that they hurt.
This was different. It was like a small flame had been lit inside her, and Giovanni’s lips were carefully, enticingly, drawing it into a fire.
When he withdrew from her finally, Beatrice couldn’t help the soft noise of irritation she made to be parted from him.
“So... what is it that you wanted to learn, Bea?” He smiled down at her, his eyes achingly gentle. His hand was playing with her hair, twisting it around his fingers. Each little pull on it sent a tingle of excitement through her body, making it very difficult to concentrate on his words.
“What?” She asked breathlessly.
“What is it that you want me to show you?” His nose brushed against hers and then nuzzled into her hair. She gasped. “What is it that you wanted to tell me?”
“I don’t…recall…” Beatrice struggled to find words as Giovanni’s lips found a very sensitive spot behind her ear. He was kissing her tenderly and biting the flesh very softly, causing her to gasp and arch her neck towards him.
“You wanted to know what couples might do at balls… on the dark walk, where no one is watching…” Giovanni’s voice rumbled into her skin, making the hairs on the back of her arms stand up. “How might they bring each other pleasure without removing their clothes?”
“Yes,” Beatrice gasped, reaching one hand up to tangle in Giovanni’s dark, curly hair.
She heard his groan into her neck and felt his whole body pressed against hers.
She couldn’t help herself and found herself tilting her hips up to meet his warm body.
There was an urgency deeply coiled in her belly that was only satisfied by his touch, by the temptation of the firm flesh she could feel in his trousers.
“You seem to have some instinctive understanding already,” Giovanni gasped, grunting against her skin.
“This is all it is?” Beatrice frowned despite the arousal flooding her body. “Kissing and bodies pressed close?”
“Not all,” Giovanni lifted his head and looked at her fondly. He was breathing heavily but touched her chin with tenderness and pressed his lips to hers. “There is also touching.”
Giovanni’s hand moved from her chin to her throat, caressing the lines of her veins, dusting his touch across her collarbone. Beatrice let out a long, fluttering breath as his hand hesitantly cupped her breast, the thumb rubbing against the soft skin emerging from her stays.
“I like that,” Beatrice breathed, closing her eyes.
“Do you?” Giovanni watched her carefully, his eyes swirling pools of darkness.
They reminded her of dark caves and falling waterfalls at nighttime.
His hands didn’t stop moving. One stroked her cheek and the other hand stroked and massaged her left breast, making her breath come in rapid pants. “Tell me what else you like, Bea.”
“I don’t know.” Beatrice twisted her head away. She was struggling to concentrate; all she knew was that she wanted more. Then she remembered something from their encounter in the library. “Before, when we were together, your hand...”
She took hold of the hand on her face and guided it down the curve of her body, holding his gaze.
It felt like both of them were holding their breath as their joined hands passed her waist, and her hip and then fumbled at the hem of her gown, where it was caught under her knees.
Beatrice gasped at the sensation of his warm, slightly coarse fingers against the soft skin of her thigh.
“You liked it when I touched you like this?” Giovanni asked, his voice barely more than a throaty rumble.
“Yes,” Beatrice gasped as Giovanni brought his lips back down to her neck, as his fingers travelled up her thigh.
“And like this?” Giovanni murmured, lapping and kissing at her breast.
“Yes,” Beatrice whispered. She let her legs part as Giovanni’s fingers travelled higher, closer to that secret space that no one had ever touched. Beatrice let her hand fall away from his, her fingers finding the blanket underneath them and dragging the fabric into her fist.
“This is something that can be done at a ball,” Giovanni’s voice thrummed into the skin of her breastbone as his fingers stroked the slightly damp skin in the crease of her thigh. “If a man and woman are particularly amorous and the gentleman is discreet...and the lady is quiet.”
Giovanni pulled away for a moment to look down at her.
He was marvelous to look at. Beatrice couldn’t help but admire how engorged his pupils were, making his eyes look like dark hollows she wanted to drown in.
His hair was tousled, dark and falling over his forehead.
His skin was flushed, and his lips were somehow plumper than usual.
If this was how Giovanni looked in moments of passion, Beatrice could understand how he had enjoyed so many lovers.
Beatrice was jealous of every single one of them, and roughly grabbed the back of his head, pulling his lips down to kiss him eagerly, wanting to drown in the taste of him.
Giovanni allowed it, his hand flattening against her thigh and the other gripping her ribcage as he kissed her back, then pulled away again.
“You told me that you know how a woman becomes with child,” he said breathlessly. “How does it happen?”
“Well, the man…he fills the lady with his seed,” Beatrice felt her face blushing brutally as she was forced to speak the words. Yet she felt an illicit thrill at speaking about something never spoken of in society.
“Well done,” Giovanni kissed away her blushes and Beatrice felt her body tremble at the praise. “And that happens...here.”
With the last word, Giovanni fluttered a finger, barely touching, over her sex. Beatrice felt like she might stop breathing. She watched Giovanni’s face and he watched her in return, then he withdrew his finger, stroking her thigh instead.
“I knew that,” Beatrice’s voice came out in a gasp as she held her breath.