Chapter Two #2
Medici moved flush against her body. Tall and strong at her back. She leaned a little into him, and he took her weight as the performer eased herself into a horizontal position. The red fabric flowing around her. Hypnotic, sinuous as she spun round in a dizzying display.
‘Can you imagine the strength and skill required to hold on?’ he murmured. His fingers tracing up her arms soft as a feather. The pleasure of his touch singing through every nerve.
Goosebumps bloomed over her as he teased the sensitive skin on her inner forearms. He dropped his head, his breath a warm gust against her neck.
His lips on her skin. Skimming up to the base of her ear.
Lily didn’t care that she might have been in a room full of people with colour and noise swirling round her.
Every part of her burned for him, for this.
It was like it was the two of them, alone in their own world.
‘What would it be like, to simply let go,’ Medici said, his words the merest brush against her ear. She trembled with the pleasure of it. Her nipples beading in her bra as he slid his arm round her waist, pulling her hard against him. His lips pure temptation against her skin once more.
‘Control, then release, Lily. That’s the essence of it. The essence of true pleasure.’
The performer’s death-defying spin on the silk slowed.
She unhooked her ankle from one of the strands.
It unspooled as she hurtled downward to the stage.
The fabric unravelling from round her body as she dropped.
Lily gasped. Then, the miracle of the way the aerialist had positioned the silks broke her fall in a masterpiece of skill.
She reined it all in, only metres above the ground. Arching back, arms behind her head.
The crowd burst into uproarious applause, but Lily barely noticed.
She leaned her head back against Medici’s shoulder as he kissed her throat.
The shock of sensation, how it affected her was like the ground shifting.
An earthquake, reshaping the world round her.
It was as if her blood boiled, the desire for this man, scorching her from the inside out.
She moaned, unable to hold in how the pleasure of his touch was unravelling her, like the red silks from round the performer.
It was as if she was tumbling herself, simply falling. He whispered words against her flesh. Things she couldn’t understand because they were said in Italian, but the tone was enough. The yearning in the sound of his voice made her ache even more.
‘I want to see you, touch all of you,’ he said. His fingers were miracles against her skin. The pleasure bright and blinding.
‘Yes,’ she said on an exhale.
‘I would have you right here, but your costume would defeat even better men than me and you deserve more. How far is your hotel?’
‘Half an hour?’
‘Mine’s five minutes.’ He stepped in front of her, holding out his hand.
She slipped hers into his, realising now there was a roughness to his, like he was familiar with manual work.
Who was this man? Sensible Lily, the one who had done reasonably at school, who’d fallen into an engagement with a man her parents had wanted, started insisting that maybe she shouldn’t be going to some random hotel with a stranger whose real name she didn’t know …
‘Second thoughts?’ Medici’s voice was low, rough. Full of need, yet he was giving her a chance to walk away.
She’s so dull.
Those words were like a whip crack reverberating in her head.
Prompting her into action. To wipe away her past so she could burst into a beautiful new future, like a butterfly from its chrysalis.
It was like she’d been sleepwalking and her ex’s comments had finally jolted her awake.
She wanted this, she wanted this man before her.
‘Only one thought,’ she said. ‘Can we make it in under five?’
Medici’s chuckle was deep and wicked. ‘Come. Let’s see.’
He turned and strode through the crowd, his cape billowing round him as she followed.
Her hand still clasped in his as they exited the ballroom and then the hotel.
A fog had descended on the city. The lights now fuzzy.
The world in soft focus. Medici held her close as they hurried through the narrow streets and alleys, the mist swirling round them.
It was mystical, magical. This shadowy figure leading her through the misty streets like something out of a fairytale.
‘I think I’d be lost without you,’ she said.
Not knowing where they were, all landmarks blurred and in soft focus.
They rounded a corner and a hotel came into view.
Beautiful, weathered stone walls. A vine-covered portico.
Huge sandstone pots of topiaries out front.
He pushed through the leadlight doors into the foyer, the space warmly lit by glittering chandeliers hanging from an ornately moulded ceiling.
Magnificent geometric marble floors in black, grey and white, spread out with a three-dimensional effect.
It was sumptuous, formal. Clearly designed to impress with its opulence and grandeur.
The type of hotel at which someone with real wealth would stay.