Slowly she shook her head.
Asigh that seemed to Erin’s fanciful imagination to be drawn from his soul shuddered through Francesco’s lean frame.
‘I should, though …’ The faint addition was as much for her own benefit as his.
He dismissed her words with an expressive shrug. ‘If we both did what we should life would be very predictable.’
‘But safe.’ At that moment it was hard for Erin to remember what safe had felt like.
He responded to her husky claim by planting a hand either side of her head and kissing her hard, silenced her protest with deep, penetrating stabs of his tongue that made her stomach dissolve.
‘Dio mio,’ he panted against her mouth. ‘I want this … I want you.I want to feel your hands on my skin.’
‘Like this?’ she suggested. Laying one hand palm-flat on his stomach, she felt the muscles under the silky hair-roughened surface immediately contract and quiver as she stroked his damp skin.
Francesco sucked in a harsh breath. His eyes glittered as though lit from within as he slid his warm hands under her top, sliding the fabric up over the twin peaks of her taut, firm breasts to reveal them to his famished gaze.
Even before he had touched her the heat of his bold, hungry stare made the sensitive peaks burn and harden into tight hard buds inside the light lacy covering.
The hunger in his eyes sent her spiralling out of control. She moaned low in her throat and sank her fingers into his hair as he unfastened her bra and cupped the warm mounds of aching flesh in his hands. Drawing them together, he buried his face in the softness before kneading the sensitised flesh and lashing the rosy tips with his tongue.
When he lifted his head there were dark bands of colour across his cheekbones and his eyes glowed as though lit from within.
‘You are perfect!’
I ought to be saying that, Erin thought as he took her face between his hands and kissed her, because he was—totally and absolutely perfect.
After the kiss she didn’t think much at all. She didn’t even realise that he had removed her jeans until she felt the abrasive texture of his hair-roughened thi
ghs against her bare skin.
As they continued to kiss with feverish abandon Erin’s hands moved lower over his flat stomach, skimming then dipping below the waistband of his boxers, causing him to suck in his breath sharply.
‘Is this what you want?’ he asked thickly as he took her hand and fed it onto his body.
As he curved her fingers around the pulsing, engorged length of him Erin whimpered low in her throat and nodded. ‘Yes.’ As she tightened her grip she felt the shudder ripple through his body.
‘And do you want to feel me inside you?’ He took her lower lip between his teeth, feeling the breath escape her mouth in a series of choky gasps. He nuzzled the side of her neck, breathing in the warm, aroused scent of her. ‘Is that what you are imagining?’
‘Oh, God!’ she moaned, dragging his face up to hers. For a split second before her eyes closed he looked directly into the blazing blue of her eyes and saw some of the desperation he felt reflected in those shimmering depths. ‘Yes, Francesco … yes,’ she said before she sealed her open lips to his.
Parting her legs, he lowered himself between them and, running a hand down the curve of one thigh, he curved her leg over his hip, pulling her body up hard against him so that she could feel how much he wanted her.
‘Dio mio, but I want you so badly … tell me you want me.’
Her eyes opened. The pupils were so dilated they almost swallowed up the blue. ‘You know I do.’ ‘I want to hear you say it.’
Self-respect and pride were noble concepts, they might matter a lot in the cold light of day, but she was burning up from the inside out and nothing mattered at all except Francesco.
‘I want you …’ she whispered against his mouth.
As Francesco continued to kiss her his long, sensitive fingers moved in sensuous stroking motions along the curve of her inner thigh, advancing and retreating until, unable to bear the torment any longer, Erin took his hand and placed it against the damp curls at the apex of her legs.
‘Please, Francesco,’ she begged, kissing the sweat-slick column of his brown throat. ‘I need.’
‘Oh, I need also, bella mia,’ he responded thickly as he slid into her wetness. ‘I need this.’
Erin, her head thrown back, a feral moan locked in her throat, arched and clutched at his shoulders as he thrust into her.