Chapter 11 #2
With a groan, she pushed up, moving towards him as his hands reached for her. She straddled him on the sofa, her lips crushing his, her tongue invading his mouth, her hands pushing at his suit jacket with urgency.
He groaned, his own fingers digging into her hair, shaping around her scalp, holding her right where she was so he could plunder her mouth.
She could feel the strength of his arousal through their clothes and need burst through her.
She rolled her hips over him, whimpering as pleasure exploded through her, the promise of what was to come something she couldn’t and wouldn’t resist.
But his hands softened and he pulled his own head back, his eyes fierce and determined even as his cheeks were slashed with colour. “Elodie,” her name on his lips was a curse. “You’re sure you want this?”
She nodded, her fingers moving to his belt buckle, undoing it with urgency.
But he pressed a hand down, stilling her. “Elodie…You’re not thinking straight right now.”
Her heart turned over at his words, at his goodness and decency, at the fact he was trying to look out for her even when his body was so obviously as hungry for her as she was for him.
“I’m feeling straight,” she corrected. “I want you, and I don’t want to fight it anymore. Not right now. There’s so much sadness, so much loss, Fiero, and all I want to do is the only thing that makes me feel really, really good.”
He opened his mouth but she shook her head and pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t fight me. Don’t talk me out of it. Please just make love to me.”
His eyes hooked to hers and she nodded, then smiled, reaching for the hem of her shirt and lifting it slowly over her head.
“Please.” But the word fell around them unheard, he was already moving, lifting her as he stood, holding her body wrapped around his, his lips seeking hers, his stride long as he carried her to her room.
He shouldered the door open and dropped her onto the bed with urgency.
She scrambled into the middle, pushing at her clothes as she went, undressing hastily and reaching for him, her hands stripping him of his clothes with the same pace.
Her need – contained for days and long, lonely nights – was now bursting from her. She dragged hungry kisses along his collarbone, her teeth nipping at his flesh, tasting him, her tongue trailing lightly over him so he moaned and she felt the reverberations in his throat.
His hands on her body were insistent, stroking her arms first, finding her waist, holding her still so he could do his own inspection, his mouth homing in on her breasts first, his tongue tracing her nipples, swirling the flesh that surrounded her nipples before his teeth teased each point, and she moaned, low in her throat, because the pleasure was so excruciating and she was drowning on a tide of awareness.
“Please,” she whimpered, digging her nails into his shoulders. Only he wasn’t finished with his exploration of her body. He ran his tongue lower, over her flat belly, and at the caesarean scar, he traced the line with his tongue, so she felt as though he was worshiping her with his mouth.
His hands on her thighs were insistent but she parted her legs with the slightest urging, placing her feet flat on the bed, her knees bent towards the ceiling.
His tongue flicked the silky flesh at the top of her thighs and she writhed against the bed, twisting as pleasure exploded inside of her.
But his hands held her still, and completely captive, as his mouth moved to her sex, his tongue running the length of her seam, teasing her with the lightness of his touch before moving deeper, pleasuring her in a way that was almost unbearable.
When she couldn’t take it any longer, he thrust a finger inside of her and she bucked her hips, crying his name again and again, wanting so much more.
She was so close, riding high on a wave of utter, desperate delight, but relief was still so far away.
She whimpered and he growled something she couldn’t understand.
It took her a moment to realise he was speaking in his native tongue, but he was breathing the words over her body, his lips claiming her flesh once more as he pulled his hand away.
A second later, she knew why – the tell tale crinkling of foil, and gratitude and impatience zipped through her.
She reached for him as he came over her, his body weight a blissful memory.
His mouth returned to her breasts as his erection moved between her legs.
He flicked her nipple with his tongue and then, at the same time he nipped her flesh with his teeth, he thrust into her so the sensations that stirred inside of her were utterly overwhelming.
It was too much, and not enough. She arched her back and he thrust deeper and now she was full of him and satisfaction was humming on the periphery of her mind, so she cried his name and dragged her nails down his back, curving her hands over his butt, holding him buried deep inside of her, wondering why she’d ever tried to fight this, why she’d ever thought this wasn’t essential?
I can make you only one promise: it is, and always will be, just sex.
His words came to her from nowhere; she pushed them away. They weren’t welcome, not when euphoria and closeness was forcibly contradicting that assertion. He said one thing but in his arms, she felt another. She felt the complete opposite.
His fingers laced through hers, pinning her hands above her head – she was his in every way, his possession absolute, and she was drowning in the heady feelings of delight, the wave cresting higher, sparking a tsunami that wouldn’t end.
There was such rightness to this. The first night they’d slept together, she’d felt it then, too.
She’d known nothing about him, really, but she’d felt perfection deep in her soul.
Completely alone on this earth, an orphan, friendless and jobless, she’d met Fiero and it hadn’t mattered that she didn’t know his surname or his occupation.
Nothing had mattered except the promises his heart made to hers, promises he was making now.
Promises she was hearing and returning. She moved her head, needing his kiss, and he gave it to her, his tongue duelling with hers in time with each thrust of his body so she was marching to his beat, his tempo, her pulse firing, her needs exploding until she was shouting his name into his mouth, pulling at her hands until they were free to roam his body once more.
The wave gave way to the heavens and she was flying amongst them, shooting in between stars and galaxies, his breathing, his Italian words, his body the only constants she cared for.
She was silk beneath his fingertips, soft and smooth and his body craved hers despite the way they’d spent the whole night, wrapped together, limbs entwined, mouths seeking, he was hungry in a way that wouldn’t abate.
It wasn’t the first time he’d felt like this. Those exact same words had pummelled his brain that night in London, the night they’d met. He’d wanted her in a way that had terrified him and made him alive all at once.
She dozed in the soft light of dawn, her lips parted, her flesh perfection.
He stared at her, the marks on her body made by him, their passion demanding his roughness, his urgency.
His stubbled jaw had grazed her sensitive flesh, leaving pale pink patches across her décolletage, and her breasts had been marked by his mouth, little red circles showing where he’d been carried away by the strength of his needs.
A surge of animalistic pride burst through him at this, proof of what they were to each other, proof of how completely she surrendered to this need, proof of how well they fitted together.
His eyes dropped to his own arms which bore the same type of physical proof.
Scratches driven over his skin as she’d exploded, her orgasms always so intense, and this one particularly so.
Her legs had wrapped around him, her ankles hooking at his back, and her hands had shredded him desperately, perhaps as she tried to make sense of this.
She couldn’t.
Nor could he.
Despite what they both knew to be right and sensible, they were powerless to resist this, powerless to resist each other. Whatever passions had stirred them three years ago, they were as fervent now as ever.
It was the last thought Fiero had before sleep snatched him, right before dawn.
He fell asleep with an arm curved possessively over Elodie’s hip and a smile lifting his lips.
He fell asleep uncaring for the sense of what they’d just done, nor with a single worry about the future.
There’d be time for that later. In that moment he felt good, and he wanted to cherish it. Life was too short, just as she’d said.