She was a free agent, and so was he. And she wanted him so much that she could barely think, let alone speak, but words were unnecessary because as soon as the lift doors had closed he took her in his arms again, kissing her with an unrestrained passion which took her breath away.
She barely registered the room, except to note that it was heady with the fragrance of flowers and softly lit for seduction. She felt a momentary qualm, half wanting to tell him that this felt slightly out of her league, but wouldn’t that just sound like a woman wanting to safeguard her reputation?
But then he began to stroke her, murmuring softly in Italian, threatening to send her already heightened senses spinning out of control, and all her doubts and fears dissolved. Pulling away from him, she met the distracted question in his eyes, and she stroked the hard jaw, as if to silently reassure him. Did he think she was going to change her mind?
‘What is it?’ he demanded.
‘Luca, I don’t…I don’t have anything.’
He frowned. ‘What are you talking about? What don’t you have?’
This was worse than one of those sex education books they forced you to read at school, graphic and matter-of-fact, but it was precisely because she had read them that she found herself blushing, which seemed slightly ridiculous in the circumstances.
‘Contraception. I’m not on the pill. I’m not prepared.’
He gave a slow, sensual smile, her statement appealing to his undeniable machismo. So she was not on the pill—which meant that she did not do this freely with others, and that pleased him more than it had any right to please him.
‘Aren’t you?’ he murmured silkily and moved his hand beneath her skirt, roving it up between her stockinged thighs. He slipped the panel of her panties aside and heard her gasp of pleasure as he pushed a finger into her moist, warm heat. He smiled when she moaned out a protest as he took the finger away and, slowly and deliberately, sucked on it, his eyes capturing hers in a look of erotic promise.
‘On the contrary, cara,’ he whispered, ‘it occurs to me that you are very well prepared indeed. And you taste absolutely delicious.’
‘Luca!’ Her voice trembled briefly and she closed her eyes, feeling strangely shy at his blatant and unashamed enjoyment.
‘And fortunately, I am, as you say—prepared.’
Her eyes flew open again to see that he had produced a pack of condoms from his pocket and, while the logical side of her was glad that he had thought of protection, some unrealistic, romantic side of her wished that he hadn’t. For didn’t that make it somehow clinical? Or did he always have them with him, just in case? And even if he did, would that be so bad? Wasn’t it better to be careful, and didn’t some of her more liberated girlfriends actually carry them around in their handbags?
He saw the brief, vulnerable look which crumpled her mouth and bent his lips to it, teasing it with tiny kisses until it had softened again.
‘Stop frowning,’ he whispered.
‘Make me.’
‘With pleasure. But first I want to see your body.’
He pulled the pink sweater over her head and sucked in a raw breath of pleasure as he saw what lay beneath. A sheer bra, sprigged with roses, and the pink-dark tips of her nipples looked as though they were a continuation of the flowers themselves.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘Beautiful. Do you always wear such exquisite lingerie? Did you wear it for me, Eve?’
She felt a feline glow of pleasure. ‘But of course.’ She tiptoed her fingers beneath his shirt and luxuriously began to trickle her fingers over the silken flesh, to alight on one small, hard nipple and to circle it.
He closed his eyes. ‘That’s good.’
His appreciation gave her the encouragement to begin to unbutton his shirt. She might not have done this for a long time, but she wasn’t a complete novice and she sighed with pleasure as, bit by bit, she bared his chest, then peeled his shirt off and dropped it on the floor. Then she dipped her head and gently bit on his nipple, and he groaned before shaking his head. He wanted her naked, and quickly.
Yet he had never felt quite so preoccupied while undressing a woman, revelling in the sensation of laying her bare. He skimmed off the skirt, the stockings and the panties and then, finally, untied the pink ribbon which bound her hair in the plait.
‘Like unwrapping a birthday present,’ he said as the hair spilled down over her shoulders, all over her tiny breasts.
She kissed a nipple and felt him shudder. ‘When’s your birthday?’
‘August,’ he said distractedly as he kicked off his shoes and swiftly divested himself of the rest of his clothes.
August was months away, and fleetingly she found herself wondering whether they would still be lovers then, but at that moment he lay down on the bed and pulled her on top of him and their warm flesh mingled as he began to kiss her and Eve stopped thinking completely.
He touched her and kissed her with expert lips and fingers, which soon had her making tiny little yelps of disbelief that something could feel so good. But he did it with a certain sense of wonder, too, as if she were the first woman he had ever made love to, and fleetingly she found herself thinking that he had seduction honed to a fine and flattering art.
His eyes were glittering with hot, black fire as he moved above her and she felt strangely and inexplicably shy when at last he entered her with one long, silken thrust.