He did stop, and she groaned, opened her eyes and frowned her dismay.
He gave a throaty laugh. ‘Do not fret, cara.’ He cupped his hands under her bottom, lifted her off her feet and headed for the bed. ‘We are going somewhere more comfortable.’ He started to walk and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the base of her throat, his tongue dipping into the delicate hollow there.
She shivered with delight. If she came to her senses, told him to stop, would he honour his word and leave? She wrapped her legs around his torso, hooked her ankles behind his back. She didn’t want the answer to that question. Didn’t want to contemplate anything, feel anything, beyond the hot rush of anticipation in her veins. Surging her hands into his hair, she pushed his head back and covered his mouth with hers. He shuddered, growled something against her lips, and she sensed his control, like hers, was starting to slip.
When they reached the bed, her reluctance to unwrap her legs had him overbalancing. He crashed down on top of her, crushing her breasts, spreading her thighs wide beneath his hips. Their mouths jerked apart and the air left Helena’s lungs with a whoomph.
‘Dio!’ He levered his weight from her with one elbow. ‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head, too breathless for words, too aroused to care about anything other than getting her hands inside his shirt. His skin next to hers. She reached for a button, her fingers fumbling, shaking, until he closed a fist over her hands and stilled them.
‘Soon,’ he murmured, dropping a long, wet kiss on her mouth that made her forget what she was doing. ‘First, I have something to finish.’
He lowered his head, closed his lips over one erect nipple and sucked the aching peak deep into his mouth. Then, when a shudder racked her body and she moaned, he turned his attention to the other.
Helena arched her back and dug her nails into the bedding. She couldn’t decide which was more exquisite. More erotic. The graze of his teeth or the flick of his tongue. She writhed. ‘Leo...’
As if responding to her strangled plea, he surged up, knelt between her thighs and slid his palms behind her knees. Their gazes
locked and her breath hitched in her throat. She could see the intent in his smouldering eyes, knew that what he had in mind would drive her over the edge in seconds.
He spread her legs and stared down at her. ‘I want to know if you taste the same, cara. If you are still sweet and hot.’
She rolled her head, tried to grasp his wrists. ‘No... Wait...’ Too soon. She would come apart too soon. And she wanted this to last. Wanted to savour every spark, every touch, every spine-tingling sensation. Wanted him to ride the swells of pleasure with her. Inside her. ‘Not yet...’
He wasn’t listening. Hands braced on her thighs, he dropped to his stomach, hooked aside her thong, and used his mouth and tongue to take her to the crest of a swift, shattering climax. She bucked against his hands, cried out something—his name?—and then she was arching up, her thighs clenched, her fingers plunging into his hair, holding tight as each powerful wave of her orgasm rocketed through her.
Her blood pulsed. Her breath came in ragged little bursts. And through a dizzying haze of sensation she felt his hands release her thighs. Felt wet, searing kisses trailing across her hips and tummy, over her breasts and up her neck.
‘Like honey,’ he rasped. ‘Hot liquid honey.’
He slid his mouth over hers, his kiss scorching, possessive, then pushed to his feet, tore off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. Shoes and socks next, then belt, trousers—a short pause to extract something from a pocket—and lastly his briefs. All removed in seconds.
He leaned down, hooked a finger in her thong. ‘As sexy as this is, it needs to come off.’ And with one yank it too was gone.
Her mouth dried. He was magnificent. Like a modern-day centurion with his wide shoulders and deep chest, his hard, flat stomach. A line of dark hair tapered south, drawing her gaze down until her eyes stopped at the sight of his impressive arousal. For a second she thought about reaching out, wrapping her hand around him, but a surge of belated shyness kept her hands by her sides, made her contemplate sliding under the covers so she didn’t feel so exposed.
Leo didn’t suffer the same affliction. He stood proud, unashamed of his arousal, his eyes trailing over her body like a starved man surveying a banquet, unsure which delicacy to devour first. The fierce glow in his eyes, the strength of his physical desire, told her he hadn’t begun to sate his appetite.
He ripped open a condom packet, sheathed himself, and stretched out beside her on the bed.
‘Beautiful.’ His teeth nipped her earlobe, grazed her jaw, tugged at her lower lip. ‘You are more beautiful than I remember.’
And as he kissed and nibbled and murmured words in Italian she didn’t understand, his hands roamed and explored, rediscovering all the secret places from the backs of her knees to the delicate tips of her ears that he knew would drive her wild.
‘And responsive,’ he added, drawing one of her moans into his mouth. ‘Still so responsive.’
‘Leo?’
He nuzzled her neck. ‘Si?’
‘Please shut up and make love to me.’
A brief moment of stillness, then a smile against her skin, a low, husky laugh that made her heart skip a beat. He moved over her, pushed his knee between hers, the chafe of his hair-roughened thigh exquisite on her sensitive skin.
He cupped her jaw with one hand, forced her to look at him. ‘No regrets.’
She frowned. ‘What—?’