He slid into bed beside her, and drew her gently back into his arms. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked at him, her eyes wide and bewildered.
She said, ‘Rome…’ and he laid a quieting finger on her lips.
‘Hush, mia cara,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t speak. Just—feel.’
And he began to kiss her.
Even as her lips parted beneath his, Cory knew she should resist. But the urge to yield was too strong, too beguiling, she realised dazedly.
His skin smelt cold and fresh, as if he’d been in the open air, and she wanted to ask him about it, only other ideas, other sensations were beginning to press on her, driving coherent thought away.
His hands seemed to drift on her, and everywhere they touched her skin sang. She felt her body lift, arching towards him in a silent demand which was almost pleading.
He pushed away the concealing sheet and caressed her breasts slowly and very gently, making the rosy nipples soar in proud response. He bent his head, worshipping each small, delicate mound in turn with his lips, letting his tongue flicker over the aroused peaks, forcing a small, frantic sound from her throat.
His mouth returned to hers, soothing her. Whispering softly in Italian against her lips, coaxing her to relax—to trust…
The fingers that stroked her skin were warm and leisurely, exploring every curve, every plane and angle as they moved downwards, and she felt his touch in her veins, quickening her bloodstream.
When his hand reached the silken barrier of her briefs she tensed again, and Rome paused, running a questing finger along the band of lace that circled her hips.
He kissed her more deeply, the play of his tongue against hers a heated, wicked incitement.
His lips moved to the whorls of her ear, and down to the haywire pulse in her throat.
The hot dart of his tongue penetrated the valley between her breasts, licking the salty excited moisture from her skin.
His cheek rested against her ribcage, assimilating the flurried thud of her heartbeat, and his hand moved downwards with exquisite deliberation, his fingertips burning through that final fragile barrier, but so slowly that she thought she might not be able to bear it.
Because she knew where she needed him—where she craved him—and he was making her wait—dear God—so long. So terribly—agonisingly long.
Her thighs were slackening and parting, offering him access in a molten, scalding rush.
He touched her through the silk, grazing softly, intimately against her tiny, excited bud. Then delicately increasing the pressure, using that last covering against her to deepen the delicious friction. Creating a rhythm that she could recognise—that she could respond to.
The breath caught in her throat as she lifted her hips to thrust herself against his hand in open need. To tell him that she wanted that ultimate obstacle gone—to be as naked as he was himself.
Suddenly Cory could feel the velvet hardness of him against her thigh. Her hand cupped him shyly, marking him, measuring him. She heard him groan softly in answer.
He moved swiftly then, stripping away her final defence, his fingers reclaiming her with total mastery. Stroking her, circling on her, drawing her into a sudden breathless spiral of sensation. Bringing her with throbbing intensity closer and closer to some undreamed-of edge where all control would be gone.
This was uncharted territory, and for a moment she was scared, afraid of ceding him too much. Of losing her identity and becoming some mindless creature of his instead.
And, as if he sensed her sudden tension, she heard him whisper against her skin, ‘Don’t fight me, cara. Come with me.’
His hand moved again, and almost at once she was lost, crying out soundlessly, wordlessly, as her body was caught—tossed to heaven and back—in the rippling convulsions of her first orgasm.
And Rome held her close and kissed her, and felt her shocked, delighted tears on his lips.
When she spoke, her voice was husky, dreaming. She said, ‘I never knew—I never guessed…’
She felt his smile against her hair as she lay, her head pillowed on his chest.
He said, ‘And that’s only the first lesson.’
‘What’s the second?’
‘This.’ He took her hand and brought it gently to his body again.
‘Ah.’ Her fingers encircled him, softly, teasingly. Caressed him with new knowledge—new wonder. And, she realised, new confidence, as she felt him stir beneath her touch. ‘And only this?’
Rome said thickly, ‘No.’
He turned, tangling a hand in her dishevelled hair, bringing her mouth to his powerfully and urgently while his other hand began a long journey down the length of her spine, tracing the curve of her hip and the taut roundness of her buttocks with sensuous greed.
Cory found herself shivering with pleasure under the passage of the long, clever fingers, her body arching—straining towards him—so that the sensitive points of her breasts grazed the hard wall of his chest.
She said breathlessly, ‘I want you. All of you.’
‘Show me.’ The invitation was almost a challenge, delivered huskily.
She felt the heat, the potency of him at the apex of her thighs, and, gasping, driven by pure instinct as her body melted—opened, she brought him into her.
He entered her slowly, his control absolute, the blue eyes scanning hers for any sign of pain or fear. But her gaze was clouded, sultry with pleasure, her breathing quickening with excitement as his strength filled her.
Then, when the union of their bodies was complete, he held her for a long moment, giving her time to accustom herself to this new sensation. Waiting…
Her hands touched his shoulders, revelling in their hard muscularity. Her fingers stroked the dark silky hair at the nape of his neck. She placed her hands flat against his chest, feeling the hammer of his heartbeat, revealingly unsteady, against her palms.
Her finger brushed his lips and he captured it, biting gently at the soft flesh.
Then, gently but deliberately, Cory began to move under him, and he matched her, taking her rhythm, letting her dictate the pace. Carefully reining back his own need for release for her pleasure.
Her body rose and fell, answering his measured thrusts. Glorying in them.
He kissed her mouth, his tongue hot and demanding against hers, then the arch of her neck, and the small eager breasts, suckling the hard pink nipples, making her moan in her throat, her head turning restlessly on the pillow.
He was murmuring to her against her flesh, his voice slurred and heavy.
Nothing existed for her in the universe but this man, in her bed, in her arms, in her body. She buried her face against him, breathing him, wanting to be absorbed into him.
His hand slipped down between them to the moist centre of her, softly and sensually caressing, and she felt the first quiver of rapture rippling like water across her being.
She lifted her legs, clasping them round his lean hips, her hands clinging to his shoulders as Rome began to drive more deeply, more powerfully, inciting her, drawing her on.
She said something—sobbed something that might have been his name—and found herself overtaken, her body imploding, fragmenting into ecstasy.
She cried out wildly, eyes blind, all her senses consumed by pleasure, and he answered her, his body juddering dangerously