It was wonderful, like being set free of every single constraint that life had had to offer. On a sudden sun-burst of unrestrained triumph, she laughed, her arms wrapping around his neck, her long legs wrapping themselves around his lean tight hips.
‘I feel you, Sandro,’ she confided in silken wonder. ‘I can feel you throbbing deep inside me.’
The words moved him. Emotionally they moved him, sending the air rushing from his lungs on a shaken gasp. Physically they moved him, adding extra substance to his masculine potency. In the next moment he was kissing her, long and deeply, his tongue matchin
g the powerful thrust of his body as he began to move, merging both acts into one glorious experience that held her completely captivated in its exciting thrall.
Then the sun-burst taking place inside her was no longer one of mere triumph, but a sun-burst of sensation—pure, sexual sensation. It opened like a budding flower, spreading its petals wider and wider on the rippling winds of an incredible pleasure, until—on a sharp indrawn gasp—she burst forth into full bloom, those delicate petals of sensation quivering out to encompass every nerve-end, every corner of her acutely responsive flesh.
Above her, Sandro was trembling with the constraint it was costing him to make this happen for her. With his hot mouth buried in her throat he moved on her, inside her, all around her. On fire, as she was on fire, so ultra-sensitised to every muscle pulse it was almost an agony to complete each sensual thrust of his body.
When her fingers caressed him, be shivered—not with cold, but with excruciating pleasure. When she kissed him, he groaned in anguish, but urgently kissed her back. But when the flower-burst began to happen inside her, he stopped moving altogether, watched her begin to bloom, felt the initial quivers of that final sensation take fierce hold of her, and with smooth, slow, careful timing, he guided her into that earth-shattering climax. Then he felt his own sun-burst begin to grow ever stronger, but only when she leapt did he give in to it; only when she cried out his name did he let go.
Reparation. It was his own reparation to hear the woman he loved so much crying out his name at this point of intense exaltation.
After that, everything splintered into a wild electric storm of pure feeling.
And neither had let the other down. Both lay there, still clasped tightly together in the prolonged and powerful aftermath, unable to move, their two hearts pounding as one.
‘OK?’ Sandro murmured when he could manage to speak at all, pushing up on his forearms so he could lay slightly trembling fingers against her flushed, damp cheek.
For an answer she kissed the hand, because it was impossible for her to use her voice yet. The biggest obstacle in her life had been surmounted at last and she was no longer a virgin—not in heart, not in mind, and definitely not in body.
‘They were pretty inadequate, weren’t they?’ she whispered eventually.
‘Who?’ he demanded, already stiffening because he sensed rejection on the way.
‘Those animals,’ she explained, and opened her love-enriched blue eyes to gaze in wonder up at him. ‘They had no idea what this is really all about.’
She thought he might get angry, was aware that he had a right to be angry with her for bringing that incident up at such a special moment. But Sandro was Italian, and Italian men were by nature very macho. He grinned—the kind of lazily smug grin that was ready to accept a compliment even if it was a very back-handed one.
‘See what you have been missing out on all of these years?’ he said arrogantly. ‘Now, perhaps, I will get a little respect around here.’
‘Ah,’ she said, and suddenly the old Joanna was looking up at him, the blue-eyed, saucy minx he had first fallen in love with. ‘But can you repeat the performance? ’ she challenged him. ‘That’s what I want to know.’
He repeated it, several times in fact, during that long, dark, steamy night
The next morning she awoke to find herself curled around him. His arm was resting in the hollow of her waist, just below her ribcage, and his other was beneath her pillow, beneath her head, long fingers tangled amongst the tumbled silk flow of her hair.
She had never seen him look so wonderful, or so content, and she lay there for ages just gazing at him, basking in the full, glorious beauty of what they had shared the night before.
Then another need began to demand supremacy. Hunger pangs bit at her with a ravenousness she hadn’t felt in days, weeks, months—years! She got up, stealthily sliding herself away from him so she wouldn’t wake him, before padding softly across the bedroom with the intention of going to her old room to get dressed.
Then she spied his discarded tee shirt, lying where he must have angrily tossed it the night before, half on the back of an upright chair, half trailing on the floor. Sheer impulse made her snatch it up and take it with her out of the room.
She pulled it on over her head. It was huge, the hemline reaching well down her slender thighs. Grinning to herself, she continued on her way to the kitchen with her bare feet pressing into the cool mosaic tiling floor, aware of every tiny nook and cranny. In fact, she felt so super-sensitive to everything that even the brush of the soft, smooth cotton across her breasts was unutterably electrifying.
Freedom, that was what all this elation was, she recognised. She felt as if she’d been set free from eternal bondage. Reborn overnight into a completely different person.
A person who could even hum happily to herself while she prepared freshly squeezed orange juice to have with her breakfast of hot buttered toast.
‘You sound cheerful,’ a deep voice said.
She turned from what she was doing to find him leaning in the open doorway. He had already taken a shower and shaved, and he was wearing a pair of old boxer shorts and nothing else—except for the short-stemmed red rose he had stuck into the elasticated waistband.
Her senses began to sizzle, memories of the night before surging up like a fire to almost engulf her. This man, she thought breathlessly, this wonderful, sexy, dynamic man—is my lover!
My lover.