His finger lightly probed, making her clench in reaction and intensifying the sensations.
“Hurt?” He withdrew.
“No. Please.” She was panting and had to lick her lips.
His touch returned, making her throw her arm across her eyes and lift her hips as she groaned jaggedly. It was so good, so good, and he kept pleasuring her with unhurried caresses until she thought she would liquefy and disappear.
His intrusion deepened slightly, did something that made the pleasure sharpen and redouble. She bit down on her lip as he focused on delivering her past what she could bear and into a profound climax. She sobbed with abandonment as her stomach muscles contracted and her thighs quivered, the whole of her convulsing in glorious release.
Slowly he withdrew his touch and planted two gentle kisses on each of her inner thighs before he rose to kiss her still-trembling abdomen.
“I have to go shower. Now.” His voice grated with strain. “Before I forget my good intentions and take this too far.”
She rolled her head on the hard tiles beneath her, still filled with lassitude. “I’d like to touch you. Help.”
“Do you realize what’s going to happen if you do?”
“In theory.” She smiled with her newfound womanly experience. “That’s why I want to do it.”
He made a noise that was both strangled laughter and defeat. In a lithe move, he settled beside her on the tiles and covered her mouth, kissing her with all the passion in him that had yet to be satisfied.
It made her hungry again and she kissed him with abandon until he growled with suffering. She cupped his jaw, urging him to back off a little so she could see.
His tiny bathing suit was too small to contain his arousal. Fascinated, she started to reach out, glanced at him.
“Be my guest.”
“Show me,” she whispered.
He did, wrapping her hand around him and teaching her what he liked. They kissed again as she caressed him. Kissed until the hand he’d tangled in her hair stung and his body shuddered and his feral cries spilled across her lips.
* * *
They enjoyed a mellow dinner in the dining room, chatting on and off with the couple at the next table.
Luli almost felt as though Gabriel had deliberately drawn those other people in to dispel the intimacy between him and Luli, which stung. She was beginning to realize what he’d meant about how she needed to be careful how much of herself she gave him. He had warned her that physical closeness would make her long for the emotional kind and it was true. She already did.
What she didn’t understand was why he didn’t want to give it to her.
“Can I ask why you were estranged from Mae?” She paused on the bridge to take hold of the rope that formed the rails and looked up at the stars. “I know she didn’t exactly reach out. She was very reserved. Is that a family trait?” she tacked on lightly.
“To some extent.” He moved to stand beside her. “I don’t spend a lot of time navel-gazing and paying therapists to tell me my family of origin is the source of all my problems, but what little I remember of my mother, she was very quiet. Regretful, perhaps, but I may be projecting. Given that Mae drove my mother to marry my father, I didn’t see a point in pursuing a relationship with her and possibly winding up committing a similar act of recklessness.”
“Present marriage excluded.”
“Of course.”
She smiled briefly, but it faded to sadness. “Your parents weren’t in love?” Was that why he didn’t feel he was capable of it? He had no example of it?
“My father was. Perhaps my mother was.” What she could see of his shadowed expression was inscrutable. “I don’t remember them fighting, but I was young.”
“How did she die? Mae never said.”
“A complication with her pregnancy. She wouldn’t let them take the baby and they both died.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.” She thought of Mae’s inexpressive face on the few occasions when she had mentioned her daughter. She must have been containing so much pain.
Much like Gabriel’s mask of indifference as he nodded toward the end of the bridge where their villa sat.
She didn’t take the hint.