Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME but different. Naked in his bed, she twisted as his hands ran over her flesh, lightly, hungrily, curiously, his body desperate for her, even when he was determined to go slowly, to draw this out.
He remembered her body in incredible detail, but as he looked at her, touched her now, she was different.
Her breasts were rounder, more full, her waist slim, with a scar from one side to the other, evidence of where their son had been plucked from her womb and into this world.
He kissed the edges of that fine, silvery line and she moaned, a noise he would never tire of hearing, a noise he had ached for, in the back of his mind, since he walked out of her flat three years earlier.
Her hands crept down, running over the flesh, so he kissed her fingertips. Even as he hated so much about her choice, even though he resented her for having made it, he couldn’t help but worship her body, the body that had grown and nourished their son, the body that had given Jack life.
He kissed his way across the scar and then pulled up on his elbows, his eyes meeting hers. Her cheeks were pink, flushed, her eyes fevered.
This was madness, utterly and completely, and yet he knew it was also essential. They had unfinished business, and until he’d got her out of his system, he wouldn’t be able to move forward.
Move forward?
And what exactly did that entail?
Fiero Montebello was a man of action, but he was also, always, a man of conviction. He had no idea what he wanted from Elodie.
Apologies?
To what end?
He dropped his mouth lower, his tongue brushing her sex so she bucked her hips, her hands moving lower on autopilot. He ignored them, running his tongue along her sensitive folds so she whimpered his name, just as he’d predicted she would.
Christo, he had no idea what he wanted, but suddenly making her beg for him to take her felt vitally important, as though forcing her to admit how much she wanted him would somehow atone for her sins, in a small way. Or maybe he was just petty. Maybe he wanted to punish her.
He ignored that thought.
It didn’t ultimately matter.
He wanted her. It made no sense. He wasn’t proud of it. But he had no intention of resisting her. Not this night, not now.
She must have fallen asleep. Her body felt heavy, languid. She stretched, and her back connected with something hard and warm, so she spun in the bed and startled, her eyes wide.
Fiero Montebello was beside her, watching her, his expression guarded, his features tense.
“What time is it?”
“Midnight.”
Her eyes swept shut. “I didn’t mean to sleep.”
His eyes roamed her face and she realised, belatedly, that she was naked.
Oh, God.
Memories of what they’d done flashed through her. His hands on her body, his body melded to hers in every way, her mouth shaping around his name, dragging over his flesh, crying for him, needing him.
“You were exhausted.”
She nodded slowly, pushing the sheet back a little self-conscious and standing. “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “I have been, since the accident.” She lifted her shoulders. “The doctor said that would fade in time.”
He nodded, but she was distracted, disbelief at what they’d done, at the stupidity of giving into this primal, aching need, making her turn to face him even as she reached for her clothes.
They’d been discarded in a hurry, hours earlier.
She lifted the dress off the floor and jerked it over her head.
“This shouldn’t have happened.” She spoke without thinking, but as soon as she said the words, she knew two things. She was absolutely right. And she wouldn’t take what they’d done back, not for all the gold in all the world.
“Oh?”
Relief burst inside of her when he didn’t immediately echo her thoughts.
“It’s too complicated.”
He watched her without speaking, so her mouth felt dry. Her body was sensitive all over, her nipples tender from the way he’d tormented them – first between his fingertips and then with his mouth. Her eyes swept shut as that memory seared her soul.
“I disagree.” He shifted in the bed, so the sheet dropped to reveal even more of his toned abdomen and she had to fight herself to keep her gaze on his face.
He pushed out of bed completely and she lost the battle, her eyes moving hungrily over his impressive body, her cheeks filling with heat at the sight of him, naked and desirable.
“This,” he came to stand before her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her body to his.
“Is the only thing in this mess of a situation that is not complicated.”
She swallowed, trying not to see the logic of his statement.
“You want me. You want me as much now as you did then.”
More, she wanted to add, because it was true. Knowing how his body worked, knowing the pleasures it could deliver, she wanted him in a way that was like dynamite in her veins.
“And I want you.” His eyes narrowed as his fingers caught the bottom of the dress she’d just pulled on.
His removal of it was clinical and slow, his eyes almost mocking as they held hers.
He lifted it over her head and whatever words she might have wished she said remained locked firmly in her throat.
“I cannot say what will happen with us. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make my peace with your decision, if I’ll be able to share Jack with you. I don’t know if we can make anything work. Except this.” His hand dropped to spread her legs a little, and then his fingers were running across her seam.
She juddered despite the words he’d spoken.
“I won’t leave him,” she whispered, but the conversation – though incredibly important – was falling through the cracks of her brain. He slid a finger inside of her and her hips bucked in surprise.
“I’m not asking you to.”
Yet.
He didn’t say the word but she felt it and shivered, even as a wave of pleasure filled her body. And another. And another. She dug her nails into his shoulders, holding on for dear life and she was rocked by the beginning of an explosion.
Then his hand moved, to her hips, and he was lifting her easily, as though she weighed nothing, bringing her back to bed as his lips sought hers. He sat on the edge of the bed and brought her onto his length, filling her completely, so deep, his possession so intense.
“You have no idea what I want to do to you,” he muttered, his fingers on her hips meaning that while she was on top, he maintained control, pulling her down on his body then lifting her up, moving his own hips in the same rhythm, so she was completely enslaved by him and this.
“Tell me,” she arched her back, her eyes hooking to the ceiling, the same feeling that she was surrendering to madness filling her, so she wondered if she should put an end to this even when she knew she wouldn’t.
“I want to make you mine,” he grunted. “I want to make you mine every damned night in every damned way.”
She whimpered as he caught her hips and rolled her backwards onto the bed, his body imprisoning her.
Then his hands caught hers, his fingers curling around her wrists, pinning them above her head so she couldn’t touch him.
He thrust deep inside of her, his eyes like granite when they met hers.
“I want to tie you up and pleasure your body until you are wild with longing and then I want to do this –,” he drove himself into her, deep, hard, his mouth dropping to her breast and flicking one of her nipples with his tongue so she cried out.
“I want to have sex with you until I forget what you’ve done. I want to have sex with you until only this remains in my mind, nothing else.”
And despite the shifting of pleasure through her body, there was intense pain too – mental pain at the hurt in his words, the anger that ran through him even now, as their bodies were coiled together.
He lifted his mouth to kiss her then, his tongue duelling with hers, showing the truth of his meaning, the intensity of this anew.
“I want to make you beg for me, as if begging will make this better.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I want to mark your body like this,” and he moved his mouth to the side of her nipple, drawing her flesh into his mouth until she was crying his name out with the force of her pleasure, and when he lifted his head a moment later, she didn’t need to look down to know he’d left a love bite there.
“I want to mark you so that when you look in the mirror, you know that in this way, you are mine.” Her heart turned over in her chest.
His words were filled with hardness but his body was pure sensual heat. Every shift and move brought a wave of desire so she was lifting her hips to draw him deeper, to make them one.
She pulled at her hands but he kept them where they were, restrained, and while he held them there, he moved his mouth to her other breast, where he tormented the nipple before moving to the soft flesh at the side and leaving another love bite.
It was so animalistic, so primal, but it filled her with a rush of heady power.
Not being able to move was intensely erotic, being a prisoner to his sensual exploration was something she’d never imagined, but now, she wanted more. She imagined being tied up by him so that both of his hands were free to explore her body, so that he could touch her all over.
She shivered as the fantasy took hold, as pleasure touched every part of her, and then she fell apart at the very seams of her body, the stitching undoing all at once so she was just a collection of limbs and cells and veins, one throbbing, hungry pulse.
He held her and he came with her, his voice echoing hers, his cry deeper, but no less desperate.
And afterwards, before she could breathe, much less speak, his eyes pinned her to the spot. His face was slashed with colour, his features held in a mask of determination. “Do you see, cara?”
The softly spoken word rocked something deep inside of her.
“Do you see how easy this, at least, is?”
She swept her eyes shut, because he was right, even when it was wrong.