“Do not challenge me, Camilla,” he said. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Good. I’ve always liked to live dangerously.”
“You might get burned.”
“Perhaps,” she said, moving both hands to his belt and beginning to work through the loops. “I want to be burned.”
She worked his pants down his lean hips and exposed his arousal to her hungry gaze. He was gorgeous. Intimidating, certainly, but he made her mouth water. Made her body feel hollow, aching to be filled. And she knew exactly with what.
But first...
But first.
She leaned down, boldly sliding her tongue over his hardened length. He swore, raising his hand and fisting her short hair. It hurt, but she pressed on. She tilted her head, taking him deep into her mouth, relishing that musky, masculine flavor on her tongue, his heat and hardness.
Everything.
She wrapped her fingers around his base and continued to move her tongue over him, savoring him as if he were a delicacy.
“Enough,” he said roughly, reaching down and lifting her up by the waist, bringing her down so that she was straddling him as though she was about to ride, her center connecting with his body. “I need you,” he said, his voice rough.
And that was enough. It was all she needed. She rocked backward slightly, holding on to his arousal and guiding it to the center of her body.
He swore, then reached over to his nightstand quickly. “Condom,” he said through gritted teeth. He produced a plastic packet and held it out to her. “Put it on me.”
Another challenge. She wasn’t going to back down, either.
She tore the packet open with shaking fingers, and thence resituated herself, fumbling for a moment before rolling the latex down over his length. Then she moved back into her previous position, struggling slightly to find the angle, and then lowering herself down slowly, biting her lip to keep from crying out as he stretched her in new and unfamiliar ways, inch by tantalizing inch.
There was no dramatic tearing pain, and she credited her years as a horsewoman with that, but it was strange. New and different and not entirely pleasurable. But he was big, and she imagined that was difficult to get used to.
But then, as she seated herself fully onto him, a sensual thrill shot through her. Not just because of how it felt, but because the idea of getting used to him—to this—meant being with him...more.
She would have months with him. To do just this. To feel him deep inside her, to have him beneath her, naked and gorgeous. To explore his body, taste him, lick him wherever she wanted.
It made her feel powerful.
It made her feel free.
And then she began to ride him. She pressed her hands on his chest, her eyes meeting his as she rose up, and then went back down, as she explored that ancient rhythm, her body honed and fit from years of outdoor labor.
A ripple of pleasure worked its way through her body, that slight discomfort being replaced by a deep, intense satisfaction. And when her orgasm began to build inside her again, she knew what it was. She knew what to chase. She rolled her hips forward, seeking out that completion that she had already experienced twice before.
Then suddenly, she found their positions reversed, found herself on her back, Matías looming over her, dark and intense, his teeth gritted.
The air rushed from her body, and she felt...small. Fragile.
Completely out of control, as opposed to the way she had felt a moment before.
He captured her arms and lifted them up over her head, holding them tight with his hand, both wrists captured in his iron grip.
His thrusts were harder, setting a rhythm she could not anticipate or control. She was the one being written, and she had no experience of such a thing.
She also had no choice but to surrender to it.
She let her head fall back, and she allowed him to be her master.
The erotic thrill of such a thing shocked her. The joy in her helplessness something she had not anticipated.
She rocked against him, then wrapped her legs around his lean hips, moving along with his every thrust, meeting him each time.
And then he began to shake, then he began to tremble, and that mask of his, all that control, fell away and for one moment, one fleeting glance, she saw him as he was. Stripped completely bare of everything in its entirety as he shook and shuddered out his release.
But she only had a moment to watch, only a moment to enjoy before she gave herself up to her own pleasure, before she lost herself completely, clung to him as her internal muscles pulsed around him, as he shook in her arms and as she trembled in his. And when the storm passed, the only sound in the room was their labored breathing. It felt right. It felt like home. Like the wind through the olive groves. Familiar somehow, even though she had never experienced anything like it before.
Then he looked at her, like he might need her.
And it was no longer the pleasure in her body that commended her sole focus, but the pain in her heart.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and wished that it would go away.
MATÍAS WATCHED CAMILLA sleep for a couple of hours before he went into the kitchen and rummaged around in the fridge for a tray of meat and cheese. He brought the charcuterie back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. She stirred, and then looked at him with sleepy eyes.
“Hello,” he said, his voice roughened by the long hours spent in silence.
“Is it morning?” she asked, rolling onto her back, drawing her arm up above her head.
She was naked and making no move to cover herself. He didn’t mind.
“Technically.”
“It’s still dark out,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position.
Her hair, artfully styled before he had taken her to bed, was now sticking straight up at the center, the golden crown she had been wearing discarded during their lovemaking. She looked like a beautiful, fallen fairy.
“Yes,” he said, “it is. But I was hungry.” He placed the food in front of her. “I thought you might be, too.”
She eyed the cheese. “I suppose I am. But...”
“Don’t worry about anything. We can stay here for as long as we like tomorrow. Or today, as the case may be. There is nothing pressing for us to attend to. You should eat. Because I expect for you to build up your strength. Because I want you again.”
He supposed he ought to feel guilt, perhaps. As he had defiled a virgin last night, something he had never done before, and he intended to do it again before the sun rose.
He did not feel guilt. It was blessedly absent. Possibly because of the color in her cheeks that spoke of her pleasure, or maybe because the sounds she had made as she had found her release still echoed in his ears. Whatever the reason, he felt surprisingly content, all things considered.
Considering that he would be getting married in a week’s time. Considering that his original fiancée had been stolen and he disliked very much being manipulated in the way that he was, he felt very content indeed.
That could perhaps be because he had a warm and very willing woman in