‘You did,’ Aurora breathed as she recalled that even with walls between them on that hot, sultry night, desire had coursed through her, just as it was rolling through her now. ‘You are.’
He slipped in his tongue and she tasted him again. He devoured her with his mouth and her hands shot to his head, just to feel his hair, just to hold his face so that she never had to separate from this bliss.
Their mouths touched and she found out how powerful his slow kiss could be. For she was not here in his dark bedroom in Rome, and she was not even thinking of that night in Silibri. She was in a place that was reserved on this earth just for them. A place that could be found whenever their mouths met.
He dragged his lips from hers, and then Aurora discovered that there were kisses she still did not know.
He took his hands from her head and turned her with a silent command, so she lay on her back as his mouth met her neck. And the slight suction he made on that sensitive flesh made her gasp.
‘Take me, Nico.’
She did not want to linger in this bliss. She did not want to know the tender pleasure of this Nico, for it would surely be safer not to know.
He licked her nipple, making generous wet circles. And she bit on her lip as he blew cool air there. Then moaned as he sucked hard. She felt her hips rise and his hand slip down.
‘I want you so badly, Aurora.’
‘Take me, then…’ she pleaded again.
‘I was too rough that night.’
‘No, no…’ she sobbed. ‘You weren’t.’
‘I should have been gentler for your first time.’
He kissed her stomach. She had always thought it too fat, yet she found she adored her own ripe flesh when it was loved by his mouth.
‘I should have tasted you…’ He moved down the bed so that his head was between her legs. ‘I should have cooled you with my mouth.’
‘Cooled me?’ she checked, for she could never have been cooled. And certainly not by what he did now.
‘Oh…’
His tongue made deep, slow strokes and he nibbled at places she did not think it right for him to do so, but her hands knotted in his hair and she let him show her bliss.
Nico was turned on by the humming noises she made, but she refused to call out his name. He could feel the tension building in her and the grip of her thighs on his head.
He sucked and he probed with his tongue and though sometimes he licked slowly he did not let up for a second.
He was relentless.
‘I—I’m…’ she gasped.
He knew.
For how could he not know when her tension was unleashed and she held on to a scream? How could he not know when he was drinking from her pulsing, tender place?
He pulled himself up over her.
Now he would take her—fast. Now this torture would be done. Aurora pleaded with him in her mind, and she knew she should never have made that wish at the Trevi Fountain.
To know his love even just once more would hurt later.
But when he slid into her…when he crushed her with his weight, and when she anticipated his rapid thrusts…she wrapped her legs round him, to join in and bring them both to the delicious end.
And yet his hands removed her legs and now he took her arms and held them above her head on the pillows as he moved onto his forearms.
‘Slow, boring love…’ he said.
Aurora heard the creak of the bed and the way his breathing sounded as he strove to hold on to his release.
‘Am I boring you Aurora?’
‘No…’ She no longer knew the rules of the game. For she was burning and melting at the same time.
He released her hands from the trap of his arms. Her fingers pressed into his shoulders and she wanted to dig her nails in, but she did not. Instead, her hands disobeyed her mind and slipped around the sides of his torso, lovingly stroking him, feeling the bliss of his smooth back and sliding her hands over the slight sheen of his skin, exploring the muscles. And then she met his taut buttocks.
Now her head lifted and she offered Nico a devoted kiss.
Better that than sob his name.
Better that then tell him how much she loved him.
She would not give in.
And soon Nico would have no choice but to give in himself, because he was moving faster now, thrusting without any measure of control.
‘I want you,’ he told her, and he took her faster.
‘Nico,’ Aurora said, ‘I can’t do this over and over.’
‘You can.’
‘I can’t pretend I don’t want you.’
‘Keep wanting me,’ he told her.
‘I’m scared to keep wanting you,’ she admitted.
‘Never stop wanting me,’ he told her.
And those ragged words felt like permission simply to give in.
She collided with the stars, with the darkness, with the fantasy of husband and wife, with the rush and power of the orgasm he had made. She had not known such intensity lived in her and it felt as if she’d been tasered.
‘Nico!’ She thought she screamed his name, but her throat was so tight it came out as a hoarse cry.
Nico let out his own breathless shout as he drove into her for the final time.
And then they kissed—a breathless panting kiss that sedated her in her post-coital bliss.
He rolled off her and she lay in the dark bedroom, naked and uncovered, for the sheet had long since gone.
And now she found out what he had meant. For she was cooling now. The air on her damp body felt calming, and she could hear his breath evening out as hers did the same.
No, his slow love was not boring.
For even as she lay cooling she knew that at any given moment she would want him again.
Like this.
In his bedroom.
Night after night after night.
Did he regret it already? Aurora pondered as he lay quietly beside her.
Possibly she did, for she was replaying his words.
Keep on wanting me.
KEEP ON WANTING ME.
Aurora lay there repeating his words in her head.
Was that to be her destiny?
To keep on wanting him? To keep on being available to him?
That sated feeling was fading, and as Nico reached across her for his phone the doubts and the hopelessness kicked back in.
‘Nico, why did you come back to Rome early?’
‘Work finished sooner than I expected and I had a good visit with my father, for once.’
Couldn’t he just say he had come back so he might see her?
‘Can’t you give me even the smallest victory, Nico?’
He