by Heidi Rice
But then all coherent thought fled as Dante walked the rest of the way out of the water.
He was naked. And he looked utterly magnificent. I knew I should look away—I was spying on him—but I couldn’t seem to detach my gaze from the masculine beauty of his nude body. The lean waist, the narrow hips, the muscular thighs and long legs, the bunch and flex of his abdominal muscles as he moved in sinuous motion. Adrenaline surged through me in a heady wave of arousal so fierce I felt giddy. My mouth dried to parchment as my gaze finally arrowed down through the magnificent V of his hip flexors to the nest of dark hair at his groin.
Mon Dieu.
He was very large. And long.
Weren’t men supposed to shrink in the cold water?
Excitement and arousal warred with panic in the centre of my chest, but did nothing to counteract the deep throbbing in my sex at the sight of his naked penis.
My mind screamed at me to move, to flee, to scurry back up the beach steps before he caught me.
If I stayed, if he became aware of my presence, I knew that all bets would be off. I would be incapable of protecting myself from this rush of need. I would be forced to make the choice he had given me four days ago—and finally feed the hunger which had been building inside me for weeks, ever since our first and only kiss.
I tried to debate the pros and cons of taking that step, as he lifted a towel from the pile of clothing and dried himself in rough efficient strokes.
I still had a chance here. To escape this need, this longing.
But the insistent pulse in my sex refused to be silenced. And suddenly all I could think about was discovering what it would be like to become Dante’s lover. Would I be totally overwhelmed again by the hunger that had thrilled me and frightened me ever since I had met him? Did I even care any more if I was?
This was not the man I had run from in Monaco. Back then he had been a distant, frightening figure. A man who could destroy me with a click of his fingers. But he had chosen not to do that; instead he’d given me a chance, a way out, when he didn’t have to. He’d told me more than once that he wasn’t a kind man, or a nice man, and on some levels I knew he wasn’t kidding about that. He could be ruthless, he was ambitious and driven, because he’d had to be. He would be a difficult man to love, if not impossible. But this wasn’t about love, I told myself staunchly as my heart all but choked me. This was about feeding the hunger, allowing myself to take something for myself. And I knew, whatever else happened, I trusted him. He would make this exciting, special, important—he’d promised me that much and I believed him.
No, he wasn’t a nice man, or a kind man, but I sensed, beneath the scars and the tattoos, the rough upbringing and the dogged pursuit of power and status, and wealth, he was a good man.
And that was all I really needed him to be. He couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t let him.
When would I ever have a chance like this again? To take a man as hot and magnificent as Dante Allegri to be my lover? My first lover?
I was by nature a cautious person. I’d had to be. But as I stood there in the warming sunlight, my whole body alive with sensation and gripped by the deep visceral tug of longing, I knew I didn’t want to be cautious any longer. Not about this. Because of my upbringing, because of spending so much of my childhood watching my mother falling in and out of love with powerful men, I was sure I could keep my heart safe while my body reached out to this man. And took everything it wanted. Everything he had promised me.
He had tugged on his shorts and was busy running the towel over his hair as I stepped out of my hiding place. As if he sensed me, his head rose suddenly and his movements stilled.
I could feel his gaze burning over every inch of my exposed skin—and there was a lot of it—as I walked down the last of the steps to the beach on shaky legs.
He didn’t stop looking at me, his gaze roaming over me as his hand fell to his side and the towel dropped to the sand.
The adrenaline rioting through my system gave me the strength to walk the rest of the way across the warm sand towards him. I knew somehow that he wouldn’t take a single step towards me. It was all part of the promise he’d made me. That this was my choice.
But, as I approached him, I could see the arousal burning in his eyes, inching out the blue of his irises and turning them to black as his pupils dilated. His breathing was as heavy as my own and that matching need somehow calmed the last of the nerves knotting in my belly.
‘Bella...’ The endearment which I had come to adore issued from those sensual lips on a husky croak of need as I finally reached him. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Satisfaction surged through me at the dark frown, the confusion matched by the hunger in his gaze.
I might be woefully inexperienced sexually, but I felt bold, brazen even, in my excuse for a bikini. He’d given me the choice and I was making it. No regrets, no excuses, no turning back.
‘Spying on you,’ I said on a tortured huff of breath. Unafraid. And unashamed.
I let my gaze drift over him in return, and let every ounce of my excitement show as the muscles of his six-pack rippled with tension, and the thick ridge stretching his boxer briefs lengthened.
The erection looked enormous, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t scared. I knew it would hurt but my sex had melted, the liquid tug between my thighs throbbing painfully now with the desire to feel that thick ridge thrusting inside me.
A cold knuckle tucked under my chin and he lifted my face to his.
‘You’re playing with fire, Edie. Unless you want me to make love to you in the next five seconds, you need to leave now.’
Make love to you.
They were only words, I knew that, to describe a basic, elemental desire. But they pierced my heart as I forced a smile to my lips, trying to appear assured and uninhibited.
I knew instinctively that I needed to keep exactly how inexperienced I was hidden from him. Or this affair would be over before it had begun.
Dante wasn’t looking for intimacy—his horrified reaction to my sympathy four nights ago had told me that much. And neither was I, despite the heavy thuds of my heartbeat. I might be a virgin, but I had always known the vast difference between lust and love—unlike my mother... Perhaps because of my mother and all the heartache I’d watched her suffer over men who had wanted her body but never her heart. Her mistake had been to think that by giving one she would get the other. I though, was a realist who would never make that mistake.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I said.
I saw his control snap, and the surge of adrenaline flowed through my veins as he swore softly and then grasped my upper arms to yank me into his embrace.
He cupped my bottom, pressing the hard ridge of his erection into my belly. I reached up and sunk my fingers into the wet silk of his hair as his lips sucked on my collarbone, finding the place where my pulse pounded and throbbed.
His chilly fingers sunk beneath the scrap of blue Lycra and I bucked against him, shocked by the intimacy of his touch as the heel of his hand pressed against my vulva and then he found the hot nub of my clitoris.
‘Bella, you’re so wet for me already,’ he murmured against my neck, stroking, circling, caressing and making my whole body dance to his tune.
He dragged off the bikini top, snapping the strap, and covered my swollen breast with his mouth, while continuing to play with his thumb, devious strokes that thrust me into a maelstrom of needs.
Part of me panicked at the speed and intensity of the feelings engulfing me, but as the waves rose up to batter my body, the arrow of sensation in my breast as he suckled hard at the nipple reverberated in my sex. The sobs of my fulfilment echoed off the surrounding rocks, drowning out the sound of the sea, the surf and the thundering beating of my heart.
‘Come for me now,’ he demanded.
I hung suspended for what felt lik
e for ever but could only have been a few seconds, then flew over, my fingers tugging at his hair, my body bucking furiously as I ground my sex against his hand, his thumb having located the perfect spot to force me over that high wide ledge.
I crashed down, my besieged body shuddering from an orgasm so sudden and intense I felt as if I’d survived a war.
I had barely come back to my senses when I felt the sand shift beneath my feet.
He had scooped me into his arms, I realised. My eyelids fluttered open and my gaze fixed on his chin, and the small crescent-shaped scar that cut through the morning stubble on his top lip.
‘Thank you,’ I muttered.
‘You’re welcome.’ He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘We’re not finished yet though,’ he said as he carried me into the beach shelter and placed me gently on one of the long cushioned couches.
He touched his thumb to my reddened nipple, played with the pebbled peak. I felt the flush of colour spread up to my hairline, knowing what a spectacle I made, lying there, all languid and sated, the bikini bra hanging off my shoulder.
He grinned, then plucked the strings that still held the garment on and drew it away. As I laid on my back topless, I shivered, seeing the feral light in his eyes. His grin died as he made quick work of the two bows that tied on the bikini bottom and tugged that off too.
Leaning over me, he swirled his tongue around my already tender nipples. I gasped, shaken by the swift return of arousal. I had thought I was sated. I was wrong.
I could hear the rush of the ocean in my ears, feel the warm breeze flowing over my over-sensitised skin, every part of me becoming an erogenous zone—throbbing with life and passion as he kissed and nipped, licked and caressed every inch of my skin.
I was writhing, the desire so intense it was almost pain when he finally parted the slick folds of my sex and lapped at the very heart of me. How could I be wild for him again so soon?
I moaned, about to go over again from the tantalising caresses, the wet suction of his lips on that swollen nub, when he rose over me. His broad shoulders cut out the sun as he stood up.
‘Hold that thought, bella,’ he said, his voice so low I could barely make out the words over the persistent thud of my pulse in my ears.
He shucked his shorts and the giant erection sprang free. Long and thick, it bowed up towards his belly button. I had a momentary fear that something so large and hard would never fit inside me, but I couldn’t take my eyes away.
‘I don’t have protection with me,’ he said as he grasped the base of the erection and stroked it absently. ‘But I want so badly to feel you come apart around me,’ he added, becoming even bigger and harder as I watched. ‘I promise I am clean, and I will pull out in time.’
A shiny drop of moisture appeared at the tip. I was so fascinated and so turned-on I could hardly talk, let alone think. The juices between my thighs flowed freely, the desire to feel that thick length inside me unbearable. I licked my lips, fixated on the sight of him, and gloried in the thought that I had done that to him.
‘Bella, look at me,’ he ordered and my head jerked up to meet his gaze. He looked amused. ‘Is that okay?’
It took me a moment to register what he was asking. The blush intensified as I realised he’d caught me gawping at his erection like a child in a sweet factory.
‘Yes, I’m clean,’ I said. ‘And I’m on the Pill,’ I said, for once impossibly grateful that I had started taking the medication to regulate my periods—which had become erratic, my doctor had insisted, because of stress. But I didn’t feel stressed now; I felt languid and exhilarated all at the same time. ‘And I want you inside me too,’ I said, just in case there was any doubt in his mind.
‘Grazie Dio,’ he murmured, the muffled curse full of the strain it was taking him to go slowly, hold back until he had my consent.
Somehow the thought of that had my heart beating double time in my chest as I watched him climb onto the lounger. His body looked so wonderful, the many imperfections as beautiful as the sleek muscles, the deeply tanned skin, the sprinkle of hair that brushed against my trembling legs and my reddened nipples. He kissed me, his tongue tangling with mine as he lifted my leg and hooked it over his. I tasted sea salt and the musty scent of my own arousal as the kiss deepened and became hungrier. The huge head of his erection nudged at the swollen folds he had primed so perfectly.
Then he thrust hard and deep. The pinching pain shocked me, the stretched feeling becoming unbearable as he plunged through the barrier of my virginity.
I bit down on my lip, swallowing the whimper of distress, as my tender flesh adjusted to the immense weight inside me. I felt impaled, conquered, overpowered.
He stilled and stared down at me. I saw shock, then confusion, then suspicion cross his face, before he masked it. For several torturous seconds I lay there shivering, waiting for him to pull out. I thought he had figured out that I was a virgin and he was angry. But as the blush fired back across my cheeks, that assured smile returned to his lips and all he said was, ‘You’re incredibly tight, bella. Am I hurting you?’
I shook my head, the muscles of my sex relaxing at last. He was still too big, too overwhelming, the intrusion still sore, still too much, but I didn’t want him to stop. And I definitely didn’t want him to figure out my secret—that I had no experience of sex at all. That I was a fraud.
‘I can make it better—just relax,’ he said, still lodged so deep inside me I was sure I could feel him in my throat. He placed a tender kiss on my lips. Then focused all his attention on my nipple again, licking and sucking the responsive flesh. He stayed inside me without moving, allowing me to adjust to his size, his girth. The darts of pleasure began to build again, and the muscles of my sex released him a little more.
At last he found the tender nub of my clitoris with that clever thumb again, and began to circle it. My sex softened, allowing him to move, rocking out, pressing back in slow, careful thrusts.
‘How does that feel?’ he said as he pressed deeper, but there was no pain now, only the exquisite waves of pleasure, building, breaking.
‘Good,’ I managed around the thickness in my throat, at the care he’d taken with me.
He pulled me under him completely and gripped my thighs, positioning me, and angling my hips, until I was wide open to him. The slow, sure, steady strokes, became harder, faster, deeper. His fingers dug into my buttocks as he forced me to take the full measure of him, butting a place that had the waves building with staggering speed.
My hands grasped his sweat-slicked shoulders, trying to cling onto my sanity as the titanic climax raced towards me.
It hit me hard, crashing into me with the force and fury of a tsunami. I cried out, swept away by the conflagration of sensation charging through my body. He grunted as I massaged his thick length, then reared back, the hoarse shout echoing off the cliffs above us as his hot seed spurted against my belly and he collapsed on top of me.
I held onto him, the shelf of his tattooed shoulder pressed me into the cushions as his jagged breathing matched my own. The haze of afterglow covered me like a golden cloak full of sparkling lights, twinkling around me and sprinkling fairy dust over my skin. I tried to suppress the fanciful thought, but the intensity of my orgasm was working against me. Everywhere we touched I could feel him, imprinted on my flesh for ever.
As I stared at the blue sky above me, the sunlight warmed my skin and my heart expanded against my ribs as his hard length finally began to soften against my belly. But as much as I tried to dismiss the overly romantic images still flickering through my brain, and that compelling feeling of contentment and security—and concentrate on the small aches and pains brought about by the primitive fury of our lovemaking—I couldn’t seem to qualify it, or even acknowledge the truth, that everything I was thinking and feeling in this moment was simply the intense physical aftermath of my first multiple orgasm.
&
nbsp; Any more than I could ignore the clenching sensation in my chest and the desire to lie there for ever—safe and secure in his arms.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SHE WAS A VIRGIN, you idiot. She tricked you. And now she’ll expect more from you than you can ever give. Or would want to give, I added swiftly, as my mind tried to engage with what had just happened.
The recriminations swirled around in my brain, but the ripples of afterglow still pulsing through my body made it hard for me to regret what I had done.
Her belly twitched against my softening erection and I felt the tingle of arousal at the base of my spine as I began to harden again.
What the...? This was madness. How could I possibly want her again so soon?
The realisation shocked me, enough to have me lifting up and rolling away from her. I lay on my back beside her and covered my eyes with my forearm.
I had felt her flinch as I drew out, but she said nothing as we lay there together, getting our breath back. Shame hung over me, not just because I had taken her with so little finesse, ploughing into her tight flesh like a battering ram, but at the knowledge that I could want to ravage her again so soon when she must be sore as hell.
I struggled to control my desire and willed my breathing to even out. She lay next to me on the lounger. I should move. I should offer to wash off my seed and the blood that had to be there. Thank God I had pulled out before I ejaculated, despite her assurances she was on the Pill. Surely that could have been a lie too, just like the pretence of sexual experience.
Dammit, why had she given herself to me so easily, so freely? Hadn’t I told her exactly how much I was prepared to offer? I felt like a bastard now and I didn’t like it. But what I liked even less was the urge to take her sweet, succulent and now no doubt bruised body back into my arms and apologise for what I’d done.
It wasn’t my fault she’d remained silent. I’d given her ample chances to stop me, but she hadn’t. Why hadn’t she? What exactly was she expecting to happen now?
