by Maisey Yates
But, thankfully, he seemed to be able to read her mind.
He moved his attentions lower then, tracing the outline of one tightened bud before sucking her in deep, the sensation sending sparks down low in her midsection that radiated outward. She struggled against his hold, because she needed to grab on to something, rather than simply stand there helpless, with her wrists captured by him.
If he noticed, he didn’t respond. If he cared, he didn’t show it. Instead, he continued on his exploration of her body. Turning his attention to her other breast and repeating the motion there. She seemed to feel it everywhere, over every inch of her skin. It made everything far too sensitive, made everything far too real. And not real enough all at the same time.
Part of her felt like she was hovering above the scene, watching it happen to someone else, because this couldn’t be happening to her. It was safe, though, to view it that way. Because the alternative was to exist in her skin all while feeling it was far too tight for her body.
Then, he released his hold on her, planting his hands tightly on her hips and pulling her up against him before sliding them around to her rear and letting his fingertips slip beneath the lace fabric of her panties, cupping her bare flesh.
And then she wasn’t divided at all. Then, she wasn’t hovering over the scene. She was in it, and everything was far too sharp, far too close. She felt too much, wanted too much. The hollow ache inside her was as intense as a knife’s cut, slicing unerringly beneath her skin and releasing a hemorrhage of need.
He squeezed her, pulling her more tightly against his body, allowing her to feel the evidence of his need for her. He was so big, so hard, everything she had never known to fantasize about. And yet, it was terrifying, too, even as it was the fulfillment of her every need.
Because she didn’t know what to do with this. Didn’t know what to do with a man such as him. But she had a feeling she was about to find out.
Slowly, so very slowly, he pushed her panties down her legs and slipped them over her feet—still clad in the jeweled flats she’d put on earlier. Then, he knelt before her, removing her shoes as he had done that day in her room.
Only this time, when he was finished and he looked up at her, she knew that there was no barrier between her body and his gaze. She shivered, relishing being his focus, wanting to hide herself from him, as well.
He gripped hold of her legs, sliding his hands firmly up the length of them, to her thighs, where he paused in front of her, looking his fill at her exposed body. She pressed her knees tightly together, as though that would do something to hide her from him. As if it would do something to stop the pounding ache.
He looked up at her, a smile curving his lips. Instinctively, she struggled to get away from him, but he held her fast. And then he leaned in, the hot press of his lips against her hip bone making her jerk with surprise.
“Don’t worry, cara,” he said, tracing a faint line inward with the tip of his tongue. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Surely this was wicked. That was the predominant thought she had when he moved unerringly to her center, his tongue hot and wet at the source of her need for him. Surely this was the height of her rebellion. The furthest that she could fall.
He tightened his hold on her, the blunt tips of his fingers digging into the soft skin on her rear as he took his sampling of her body deeper, as he slid his tongue all the way through her slick folds and back again, a rumbling sound of approval vibrating through his massive frame.
And then she simply didn’t care. If it was wrong, if they were wrong. She didn’t care about anything, anything at all except for the exquisite sensations he was lavishing her body with. She shivered as his tongue passed over the sensitive bundle of nerves again and again, establishing a rhythm that she thought might crack her into tiny pieces.
She planted her hands on his shoulders, and she didn’t push him away. Instead, she braced herself as he stole her control with each pass of his tongue. As he worked to reduce her to a puddle of nothing more than shock and need. Oh, but the need won out. And if it was shocking, if she felt scandalized, it only made all of it that much more delicious.
Because this was the dark secret thing inside her allowed to come out and play. This was the piece of herself she had most feared, and here she was living it. She had always been afraid that she was wrong. That she could never, ever be the person her parents wanted her to be, no matter how her dad yelled at her. No matter how they tried to control her. She was proving it right. She had started on this journey more than a year ago, and this was the logical end.
But it didn’t feel like a disaster. If anything, it felt like a triumph.
Suddenly, he shifted positions, taking hold of one thigh and draping it over his hip before he wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping the other firmly planted on her rear as he stood, bracing her body against his as he walked them through the main room of the penthouse toward one of the bedrooms.
She clung to his shoulders, shivering as his hot breath fanned over her flesh, as shock and anticipation continued to fire through her with a strength that seemed beyond reality.
When they came into the bedroom, he moved to the end of the bed, setting her down on the edge before going to his knees again, gripping her hips and bringing her to his mouth. He settled her legs over his shoulders, her heels pressed against his shoulder blades as he tasted her deeper, adding his fingers now, pressing one deep inside her. The unfamiliar invasion making her gasp.
But any discomfort was erased as he moved the flat of his tongue over her again and again in time with that finger, before adding a second, pushing her higher, harder than she had imagined it was possible to go. She was moving toward a goal she didn’t even recognize. All she knew was need, but she didn’t know what it was she needed.
He increased the pace, the pressure, and she forgot to breathe, forgot to think. She threw one arm over her eyes, moving her hips in time with him, not caring if that was wrong. Not caring if she should be embarrassed. She didn’t care about anything but satisfying that need. And she knew this was it, she knew that he possessed the power to do it, and she would give him anything, allow him any liberty, in order to see it done.
Then suddenly it all broke apart, the tension that was screaming inside her bursting into shards of glass, shimmering inside her, bright and deadly and much more acute than anything she’d ever known before.
He continued to trace the shape of her with his tongue as aftershocks rolled through her, taking his time, satisfying himself even as she lay there assaulted by the shock of her own satisfaction.
“Renzo,” she said, feeling unsteady, trembling all the way through. “I need...”
“I’ll give you what you need,” he said. “Patience.”
She didn’t even know what she needed. She shouldn’t need anything more than what he’d already given. And yet, she could sense that something was missing. That she wouldn’t be fully satisfied until she had him—all of him—inside her.
But then he moved away from her, standing and picking up where she had left off with his shirt, undoing each button slowly, revealing more and more golden skin, hard-packed muscles and the perfect amount of dark hair sprinkled over them.
She ached to touch him. To taste him. But she was boneless, and she found that she couldn’t move. Her throat went dry as she watched his slow removal of clothing, the maddeningly methodical reveal of his body. And when his hands went to his silver belt buckle, everything in her froze.
She had never seen a naked man before. She wasn’t sure if she was glad then, or if she regretted that she had no other experience to fall back on.
She licked her lips as he lowered that zipper, slowly, everything so very slow, her attention undivided. And then he pushed them down his lean hips—taking his underwear along with them—revealing every inch of his masculinity to her hungry gaze.
Her stomach clenched tight, seizing with desire and no small amount of virginal fear when she saw him.
In the back of her mind she tried to placate herself, tried to say things about new experiences and all of that. Except, it didn’t work. It didn’t work because he was more than just a new experience. Because she wasn’t just having sex with him for the sake of experiencing sex. She wanted him. She wanted him in spite of her nerves, she wanted him more than she could ever remember wanting anything.
It was terrifying in its way. You want someone so much, in spite of any and all hints of fear or doubt. To know that it might end badly and to not care at all. It was also fascinating and about the best reason to do something that she could even think of. Because she couldn’t help herself. Because she felt there was no other option.
“You don’t have to worry about me. My health,” he clarified. “I was extensively tested post-Ashley. And I haven’t been with anyone else since.”
“I’m good,” she said, before she could even fully sort through what he was saying.
“Good,” he said.
He joined her on the bed, placing his hand on her head and moving his palm down her thigh, then back up again, to the indent of her waist, to her breast. He cupped her, moving his thumb over her nipple. She gasped, arching against him, shocked at the ferocity with which she wanted him so soon after that soul-shattering release.
He kissed her, and as he did he settled between her thighs, the blunt head of his arousal pressing against her slick entrance. She let her head fall back, everything in her sighing yes. She wanted him. There was no doubt now. None at all.
And if there was fear? It was all part of it. All sacrificed on this altar. She was giving him her fear, her body, her virginity. It was what made it matter. It was what made it feel so immense. And that immensity was what made her embrace it so completely.
She would never be the same after this. Her eyes met his as the thought clicked into place, as he began to press inside her. The enormity of that filled her as he did, blotting out the brief, sharp pain that accompanied his invasion.
She reached up, touching his face, not able to tear her gaze away from him. He was... He was inside her. Part of her. They were joined together. And she knew that changed everything. She knew that—for her—there was no experiencing this on a casual level. That for her sex would always be deep like this, something that echoed inside her and resonated through to her soul.
He flexed his hips forward, and she saw stars as he moved even deeper, as he butted up against that sensitive bundle of nerves there. She clutched his shoulders as he established a steady rhythm, pushing them both to the brink, his rough, uneven breathing the soundtrack of her desire.
Knowing that he was so close to the edge, knowing that he was as affected as she was, only pushed her arousal to an even higher place. Impossible. It was impossible to think she could contain so much. So much need, so much of him. She would break apart completely if she didn’t find release soon, and yet, she almost didn’t want to come. Almost wanted to stay like this, poised on the brink of pain, and closer to anyone than she had ever been in her life.
She moved her hands down from his shoulders, her fingertips skimming over his muscles, feeling his strength as he braced himself above her, as he thrust into her harder and harder. She loved that. This feeling that consumed all of her, that was too much and not enough.
This was life. Life unfiltered, unprotected. Raw and intense, and no doubt every bit as dangerous as she had always been taught.
But it was real. Real in a way nothing else had ever been.
He growled, and it was that sound, that show of intensity, that sent her over the edge. Orgasm rocked her, this release going deeper, hitting her harder than the one that had come before it.
She clung to him long after the release passed, held him while he tensed, and then shattered, his muscles trembling as he gave in to his own pleasure. As powerful as it had been to find climax with him, it was his that undid her. To have him shake and shudder over her body, in her body, this man who was so much more experienced than she was, who was larger than life and seemed to be built out of stone... To have him lose his control because of her was altering in every way.
In a way it never could have been if he weren’t the man he was. If he were an easy man, one who gave easily to the environment around him, then she would have simply been one more element that changed the shape of him.
Instead, this made her different. It made her matter. She had moved a mountain, and only a few hours ago she would have said that wasn’t possible.
He was different from her father. Who controlled her because he was afraid of what she could be. That wasn’t Renzo. It made her wonder if Renzo controlled everything around him because he was afraid of himself.
And that, she supposed, was the difference between a man who acted from a place of weakness and a man such as Renzo, who was coming from a place of damaged strength.
She didn’t know why she thought that, why she imagined he was anything other than perfect and beautiful and whole as he presented himself.
Maybe it was because she had seen him in pieces just now. Just like her.
He moved away from her then, levering himself into a sitting position and pushing his hand through his dark hair. “You could have told me you were a virgin.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I GENUINELY THOUGHT it was self-evident,” she said, not sure how she felt that he was leading with that. “And I kind of thought that after the procedures at the fertility clinic it might not be obvious. I do think that it would be obvious given the fact that I clearly don’t know how to kiss.”
He shook his head. “A lot of people have sex without knowing what they’re doing, Esther. A lack of skill can speak to the fact you’ve been with men who didn’t handle you correctly.”
“Well, there were none. I dropped enough hints about my childhood that... Anyway. It doesn’t matter. Are you saying you wouldn’t have slept with me if you’d known?”
“No,” he returned, his voice rough.
“Well, then I suppose this is a fight that isn’t worth having.”
“I might have been a little bit gentler with you.”
“All the more reason for me to not tell you. Because... I liked how you did it.”
He treated her to a hard look. “You don’t know better.”
She shrugged, suddenly feeling small and naked. “That’s true of me and a lot of things.”
“Explain yourself to me.”
She scrambled into a sitting position, grabbing the blankets and holding them over her chest. “That doesn’t exactly make me feel inspired to share.”
“I want to understand you,” he said, clearly deciding that there had to be a better way to approach this. “Tell me about yourself. Everything.”
“I feel like if you had been paying closer attention you would have deduced the fact that I hadn’t been with anybody.”
“I assumed you would have found somebody as part of your world travel. Backpacking and staying in hostels generally lends itself to casual hookups.”
She drew her knees up to her chest. “You know that from your time spent backpacking?”
“Everyone knows that,” he said, his tone definitive.
“Okay. Well, I guess this is where I tell you that I’m not like other girls.” She laughed. “I mean, obviously. I wasn’t raised in a small town. That was misleading. Not entirely a lie, but not entirely the truth. I was raised in a commune.”
That was met with nothing but silence.
“You see,” she said, “I’ve learned not to lead with that.”
“Do you mean you were raised in a cult?”
“Kind of. I guess. We weren’t allowed to watch TV, I wasn’t allowed to listen to the radio. I wasn’t exposed to any pop culture, any popular music. Nothing. I didn’t know anything my family, or the leaders in the community, didn’t want us to know.”
“That...strangely makes you make more sense.” The way he spoke, slowly, as though he were putting all the pieces together and findi
ng out that they did in fact fit, would have been funny if it didn’t make her feel like such an oddity.
“I imagine it does.” She took a deep breath. “But I never fit. I started...rebelling. Secretly, though, when I was a child.”
He stared at her. “When you’re raised in one way, believing one thing, exposed to nothing else, what makes you question your surroundings?”
No one had ever asked her that before. Most people didn’t want to talk about her past because they found it uncomfortable. Or, they wanted to ask her if she had been a child bride or if she had shaved her head.
“I don’t know. I just know that it never felt right. So I started...collecting things. There was a book exchange in the little town we lived near. A wooden kind of mailbox that had free books. And I used to stick them in my bag and sneak them back home when my mom was distracted with her grocery shopping. Then I would take them home and hide them in the woods. I did the same later, with music. But that was harder because I never had much in the way of money. But between rummage sales and the library, I managed to get a portable CD player and some CDs.”
“Not a huge rebellion,” he said.
“Well, maybe not for everyone. But for me it was. For...for my father it was. My youngest brother is the one who told on me. I know he didn’t mean for it to be as bad as it was. I know he didn’t mean to... He was just being a brat.” She laughed, shaking her head and trying to hold back tears. “He found my books and my music, and he showed my mom. Who in turn showed...my dad. He said I had one chance to say I would never read or listen to anything unapproved again or I...I would have to go.”
“And you didn’t?” he prompted.
“I wouldn’t. So there was a meeting. A meeting with everyone, and I thought...my father loved me. I asked him, I asked him then in front of everyone. If he loved me, how could he send me away just because I liked different books and different music? Just because I was different.” She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to ease the ache. “But he said...he said that if I wouldn’t change I couldn’t be his daughter anymore. He said it in front of everyone. He said that it was for the good of everyone else. That it was real love to require that I change and...and I don’t think it is. It’s control. And if he couldn’t control me, he didn’t want me.”
