by Kate Walker
She was trembling all over, her head spinning until she felt sick.
‘What—what do you mean we can’t?’
Heavy lids hooded the dark eyes, those impossibly long black lashes lying like sooty arcs on his cheeks. But then his gaze lifted, his hands moved up to cup her head, one at each side, and he looked down into her face.
‘I have nothing—no protection.’
‘Oh, is that all…?’
The words escaped on a rush of relief before she had time to consider how they might sound, the sort of impression they could give.
‘I mean—you don’t have to worry—I’m on the Pill.’
A pill that she hadn’t yet taken today, it was true. A pill that was in her handbag, in her car. But she could fetch it later. She would still take it tonight.
‘There won’t be any…consequence…from this. I promise.’
Still he looked doubtful. Still he frowned down into her upturned, absorbed face. And just when she had thought she could hope he slowly shook his dark head again.
‘A pregnancy is not the only concern…’
It was almost too much. Anger spiked inside her, coming close to making her push him away, push him from her so that she could get off the bed and…
And what?
She had no clothes she could bear to wear. Hers were still in that nasty little damp pile in the corner of the bathroom, so she could hardly adopt a posture of offended dignity and stalk anywhere.
And besides…Looking into his face again, she saw the shadows that clouded his eyes, noted the lines of strain etched around his mouth that revealed the struggle he was having to control himself enough to even make this decision. At least to make it with the rational part of him. His irrational desires were still very much part of the equation if the hot, hard evidence of his arousal that was still pressed against her naked stomach was anything to go by.
He still wanted her and she—oh, she wanted this so much.
It wasn’t just the physical hunger that drove her. Deep inside she acknowledged another burning, equally powerful need. The need to assert life in the face of everything that was happening. The need to feel that, for today at least, she was not alone. The need to be held, to be touched, to be loved. The need to share with another human being when there had been so much emptiness and pain in her life until now.
And the need to explore the totally unexpected and stunningly powerful connection she had felt to this man from the first moment that he had burst into her life and snatched her up from the waves that were closing over her head.
And so she swallowed the angry reproach, the heated rejection and instead she lifted a hand and touched his lean face very softly, holding those clouded dark eyes with her own as she did so. A heavy lock of jet-black hair had fallen wildly over his forehead and she brushed that back, letting her fingers smooth down over his skull, slide down to the point on his neck where the heavy pulse still beat with an unevenness that betrayed his lack of relaxation. For all that the long, powerful body lay still and apparently acquiescent against her, he was like some streamlined hunting cat, lying waiting and watching, totally alert. Make the wrong move and he would rear up, fling himself away from her and she would never, ever get him back, she had no doubt about that.
And so she spoke as softly, as calmly—as confidently—as she could. Which wasn’t easy when her mouth was so dry and her throat threatened to seize up each time she forced a word out of it.
‘A pregnancy is not the only concern…’ she echoed in agreement. ‘But I can promise you that you have no need to worry over that either. I say again, there will be no consequences of any sort from our—from anything that might happen here between us.’
She tried to make her voice as sure and as confident as she felt inside, but just at the last minute a sudden cold breeze of doubt seemed to brush across her thoughts.
He was tempted. She could see it in his face. It was obvious that he was having every bit as hard a struggle to deny her as she would have to accept if he was going to end this right here and now.
‘Vito…’
Still he didn’t speak and she could almost hear his brain working, weighing up arguments, debating with himself, coming to no conclusion. But there was some change in his expression, some different light in his eye that gave her hope. And, pushing home what she prayed was an advantage, she lifted her head from the bed and pressed first a gentle, tentative kiss on that sculpted mouth, and then a second, more confident one when he didn’t pull away.
He didn’t pull away but then he didn’t encourage her either, though the hooded lids dropped lower over his eyes to hide their darkness from her. But under the fingers that rested against his throat his pulse leaped, spiked, then settled into a faster thudding, beat that revealed far more about the way he was feeling than the carefully schooled—into—stone expression on his face.
Gathering her courage, she put her arms up and around his neck, drawing his face down towards hers until their mouths were almost touching. He came willingly enough, with only faint traces of a lingering tension in the muscles of his neck to show any indication of reluctance.
‘Vito…’ Emily whispered against his cheek. ‘Don’t fight this. Please don’t. There will be no problem, I promise you. Nothing—nothing at all.’
Those dark eyes had closed completely now and under her hands she felt him swallow hard, just once.
‘I want this, Vito…I want you…I—’
The words were cut off, what she had been about to say being pushed back down her throat as, with a muttered curse in savage Italian, he abandoned all pretence of fighting. He clamped his mouth down on hers in a fierce, burning kiss that short-circuited every cell in her brain as awareness flooded every other nerve connection, sparking into life again the flames of passion. Flames that she had thought had settled down to just smouldering embers.
How wrong she had been. They hadn’t been smouldering but glowing hotly, waiting for someone to throw new fuel onto them so that they could blaze with new vigour, with greater intensity. The need that clawed at her was so sharp, so savage that she gasped aloud as she coped with a hunger that was near to pain.
And it seemed that Vito felt the same way too.
‘I can’t fight you,’ he muttered savagely against her mouth, kissing her again with a force that crushed her lips back against her teeth, his hands twisting in her hair, holding her head so that she was trapped underneath him, unable to move either right or left. She was just where he wanted her, where he could kiss her almost into oblivion.
‘I tried to fight myself and that was hard enough—but when you…’
His voice trailed off again as he kissed her more fiercely than before, plundering her mouth, tasting her, invading her.
‘I can’t deny you.’
‘I don’t want you to!’ Emily managed to gasp as he was forced to lift his head to snatch in some air, allowing her a moment to breathe too. ‘What I want is to do this…’
Lifting her head from where it was pillowed on the duvet, she kissed him again, letting her tongue slide along his lips, teasing his mouth open once again. And in the same moment she let her hands slide over the hard, straight line of his shoulders, down the length of his chest. She tangled her fingertips in the dark hairs, tracing small, teasing circles over the tight male nipples, smiling to herself as she heard his swiftly indrawn breath.
‘Emilia…’
It was an ambiguous sound, part warning, part plea for restraint, part encouragement for more.
Emily determined to focus on the encouragement; it fitted much more with the way she was feeling than either of the others. And so she turned her head slightly, let her tongue slide over the bronzed skin, curling round the small nipple that tightened even more under her ministrations.
‘You witch!’ Vito muttered and her smile grew as she heard in his tone just how close he was to breaking point.
Her actions were having as much effect on her as on him. The taste of his
skin, still slightly salty from the sea, tingled on her tongue, and his musky scent acted like a powerful spirit on her senses, intoxicating and liberating her. She kissed his chest, even let her teeth graze lightly over those taut nipples, and all the time she pressed herself against his hard-muscled body while her hands moved over his back, down the long, straight spine, over the tight contours of his buttocks. Her smile grew as she felt him jerk once, tensing under the provocation of her touch.
‘You witch!’ he said again but in a very different way this time.
Emily let herself meet his eyes for the first time since she had begun this campaign of provocation, and what she saw there wiped the smile from her face, all trace of fun leaving the situation in the space of a single heartbeat. Vito’s dark gaze glittered with an almost feverish passion. There was a red line of heat scored across the carved cheekbones and his breath came raw and ragged as he fought for control. Every other thought had left his mind and suddenly all his strength, all his power was concentrated wholly on her and her alone.
Something hard and sharp twisted in Emily’s stomach and she really couldn’t have said if it was excitement or panic or some mind-blowing combination of the two. The hands that had stroked and teased so confidently faltered, stilled, almost dropped away, then tried to caress him again. Only to be grabbed by Vito and pulled up above her head, brought together on the soft bedspread, one big hand clamping over the wrists of both of hers to hold her still and imprisoned.
‘Oh, no, carina,’ he muttered, thick and rough. ‘You have had your fun and now it’s my turn. Now I show you the way it can be between us.’
The knot in Emily’s stomach tightened, coiling in on itself even more, seeming to send shivers through her lower body, creating an almost electrical shock between her legs where the slow, steady heat that had burned now flared into something wild and fierce. Her body writhed under his, rubbing against the hot, swollen force of his erection, but Vito only laughed deep in his throat and shook his dark head.
‘Oh, no, carissima, no! If we’re going to do this then we’re not going to rush things. We’re going to take it really slow—and I’m going to show you what it’s like to really want, to really hunger. By the time I’ve finished you’ll be so hungry for me that you’ll be screaming…’
She was screaming now, inside at least, Emily thought, but she couldn’t let him know that. She also didn’t dare to wonder how he could make things any more sensuous, how he could arouse her any further, how…
Her thoughts stopped dead as Vito lowered his mouth to hers, taking her lips in a slow, sensual caress that was so very different from the fierce assault of just moments before. His mouth seduced hers, his tongue teased its way inside, his breath mingled with hers, and the taste of him was far richer, more satisfying than the finest meal she had ever enjoyed.
And he took his time over everything.
He kissed her until her head swam. He left her breathless and yearning and hungry for more. Because somehow he seemed to sense when she had almost—almost—had enough and then he moved on. His tormenting, tantalising, seductive mouth left hers and kissed its way over her chin, along her jaw and down, down her neck.
And still his hand kept her prisoner. Still he held her while she writhed underneath him, longing—needing—to touch in response and being so totally controlled that she was unable to. There was no harshness in his restraint, no cruelty in his hold, only a firm, cool grip that she couldn’t fight against even if she tried.
By the time that his dark head and that teasing, exciting mouth had slipped ever lower, covering the path of soft skin to the slope of her left breast, she was incapable of doing anything other than surrender. Her senses were so roused, the need that burned through her white-hot in intensity, so that when he used his free hand to lift her breast to his mouth, taking the distended nipple into its heat and suckling softly, she was almost swooning in delight. And as soon as the smallest moan of pleasure escaped her he increased the pressure of his mouth on her, stimulating and enticing until every nerve that radiated from her nipple was stinging with a pleasure that was so intense it was close to pain.
‘Vito!’ she cried but his only response was a rich, dark chuckle low in his throat as, still keeping his mouth on her breast, he moved his hand lower, let it slide between her legs, wicked fingers knowing exactly where to find and precisely how to touch the other tight, hungry nub that yearned for his attention.
‘Oh—Vito…’
His name was the only word her tongue was capable of forming, the only thought in her head. She was lost, abandoned, adrift on a golden tide of pleasure that picked her up and carried her away, closing over her head with every bit of the force that the cold sea waves had turned on her earlier that day.
But now there wasn’t an inch of her that was cold. Instead, every inch, every nerve, every cell was ablaze with burning hunger. And the heat built and built as Vito kept up his sensual assault on her body, until her head thrashed from side to side on the denim-blue duvet, her hands straining to be freed from his powerful imprisonment.
But it was only when he finally pushed her legs apart and eased himself between them that he actually let her go. And then she was too far gone into a world of scorching sensation that she barely noticed he had freed her. Instead every part of her mind was now focused on the core of her body, on the spot where the heated head of his erection was pushing at her, stretching her, driving into her with a force and strength that made her breath escape in a wild gasp of shocked delight.
‘Emilia…’
‘Vito…’
Her name and his were spoken together, blending into one wild, hungry cry of fierce excitement that echoed through the silence of the room. And as Emily belatedly realised that her hands were free her only thought was to fling her arms around the neck of the man above her, close her hands over the strength of his shoulders. She felt the hard muscles bunch as they tensed and relaxed and then tensed again with each forceful thrust into her hungry body, fingers digging into his skin as he took her higher, harder, faster, until she was spinning out of control, out of the world, out of her body. She knew that Vito was there, but Vito was all she knew. And all she wanted to know. He was the only real thing in a world that had hazed into insignificance. The only solid strength where everything else had melted away, out of her sight and out of her grasp.
She was reaching for something else. Something brighter and fiercer and far, far stronger than she had ever known before. And somewhere, barely registered, almost hidden at the back of her mind, was the stunning, unbelievable realisation that this was something they were heading towards together. That this was amazing, special, unique because it was shared, because Vito was making sure that she was right there with him, all the way.
And that thought was so astounding that it was the one that finally took her over the edge and into a golden, glowing, mind-shattering oblivion.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE sun was warm on the top of Vito’s head as he strolled along the promenade towards where Emily had parked her car the previous day. Out in the bay the sea lapped against the shore in a lazy, placid way that made it seem almost impossible that it had ever been as wild and dangerous as it had yesterday afternoon.
This sea, calm and almost unmoving in the sunlight, would never have caused the problems it had yesterday. It would never have been the danger it had been for Emily, never have knocked her off her feet, almost drowned her.
So he had to be grateful that it was like this today and not yesterday—or that it was yesterday that Emily had decided to go for the paddle in the sea that had resulted in the accident that had brought her into his life.
Into his life…
Vito paused for a moment, a smile curving the corners of his mouth, eyes narrowed against the sun as he stared out at the far horizon, idly tossing the key he held up and then catching it in one hand as he remembered the scene he had woken to in his flat that morning.
He had no idea at what
time he had fallen asleep. Only knew that it had been a long time after Emily had finally succumbed to the exhaustion that their long hours of passionate lovemaking had produced in her. But he had stayed awake for much longer, lying beside her, propped up on one elbow, simply watching her sleep. He had stared down into her relaxed and peaceful face, listening to her soft breathing, watching the way her eyelids flickered occasionally.
He had lost count of how many times they had made love altogether. That first passionate coming together had only been the start of it. After that they had spent the rest of the evening in bed, only pausing perhaps for an hour or so when hunger and thirst had forced them into the kitchen in search of the coffee he had planned to make some time before. Eventually satiated and content, he had fallen asleep like her, only to be woken as the dawn light flooded into the room by the feel of her soft hands exploring his body, the caress of kisses on his skin.
And it had all begun again.
But now, at last, they had decided that they had better start the day. And that meant that they had had to consider facing the world again. Much as they both might have wanted to stay holed up in the flat forever, they had to consider reality—at least just a little bit.
And that was when the mood had changed.
Just as it had been yesterday when he had stopped kissing her and given her the freedom to speak, so now this morning, when they had finally got out of bed, Emily had suddenly seemed to become someone else. She was edgy, twitchy, and her mind had definitely been elsewhere. When he had got up to make more coffee, she had hurried into the bathroom, only to emerge a few moments later with a bundle of something in her hands and a horrified expression on her face.
‘Look at this! Look at this mess!’
She shook out the crumpled items that then revealed themselves to be the T-shirt and jeans she had worn the day before. Having spent the night on the floor in the bathroom they were creased beyond repair and obviously still unpleasantly wet and cold.
