Pleasure pulsates out from my core, coiling through my limbs, making movement impossible as I surrender to his every thrust. I keep my mouth pinned to his, my wanton moans merging with his unhinged grunts, trapping them inside.
And I can feel his climax building, feel his thrusts turning jagged, and I tear my mouth away. I want to watch him come. I want to see this beautiful man, so powerful, so controlled and so secretly loving, spill his load inside me. I want to be the woman capable of doing that.
Our eyes lock as he grips me tighter. His neck cords up, his jaw pulses and my mouth falls open. My pants are enough to tell him I’m tipping over and he’s there with me. His body jerks, a sharp thrust that sends me up the door, and I drop my head forward and bite into his shoulder to stop the cry that’s desperate to emerge with my orgasm. But his growl doesn’t have the same point of rescue, and I cover his mouth with my hand and feel it vibrate against my palm as he lets go.
He rides it out inside me, against me. It’s quick, it’s intense and it’s mind-altering. I feel reawakened, as if I’m stepping out of the dark and seeing life for what it is—full of possibility, of potential, of so much more if I just take a leap.
‘Wow.’ It comes out of me softly, full of wonder, and as I raise my head to smile at him I feel his lips lift beneath my palm and see the same smile in his eyes. Their golden hue, intense, alive.
‘That was fun,’ I say, lowering my hand from his lips, and he chases it with his mouth, kissing the palm.
‘Very much so.’
I feel like warm, mouldable putty, incapable of standing, let alone walking out of here. But we have to and soon. There’s only so long we can disappear for under the pretence of fashioning a compress.
‘So...’ I say. ‘The first-aid kit?’
He chuckles low in his throat and pulls out of me, careful to wait for my feet to be planted before he releases me completely, and my body immediately pines for the loss of his.
‘That’s what we came in here for,’ I remind him, meeting the mischief in his face.
‘Absolutely. What else could we have possibly needed?’
I watch him move away, his laugh teasing my blissfully satiated body, and bite into my lip. How is it possible to want him again? Already?
I don’t know, but I do know that this week is turning out better than I ever could have imagined...
We make ourselves presentable, and focus on constructing the compress for Nonna, but I feel the awareness still thrumming in the air, the desire that we can’t seem to burn out. As we go to leave, he grabs my hand and pulls me back in for a kiss that promises more, so much more. Soon, very soon.
I should feel guilty. I know I should. Dani made her thoughts clear as far as Rafael and I are concerned. But that was when she was worried about potential heartbreak. And I’m not foolish enough to fall in love with Rafael. He isn’t a man wanting a future. He’s a man wanting super-hot sex. And I’m all for that.
The new me is one hundred percent all over it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Danielle and Tyler’s Wedding Week
Monday: Bridal Party Dinner. Terrace,
eight-thirty p.m.
AKA TORTURE ON the terrace. And it was always going to be torture...even before Dani made it clear she had high hopes for Faye and Dante getting it on. Her not-so-subtle matchmaking has been full-on since we emerged from the pool house and, no matter how much I remind myself that it was me cock-deep in Faye, bringing her to climax twice in one day, I can’t stop the way it riles me.
She made sure they sat together at the poolside and encouraged them into a game of water volleyball with Harry and his wedding date, Lisa. It quickly morphed into what Dani declared as a chicken fight, and there was no way the designer of Faye’s swimsuit envisaged it being worn during that. No way at all.
Not when her legs were hooked on Dante’s shoulders, his hands grasping at her thighs as the couples sought to up-end the females into the water. I mean, one wrong move and that mesh would surely tear, or a breast would pop free or, heaven forbid, come away all together. It seemed far too delicate, the mix of mesh and opaque fabric curving around her body in just the right way to conceal the crucial points, but one tug, one mistimed move, and...
It didn’t happen, but it could have, and the idea had my entire body rigid for the duration.
As did the fact that it was Dante’s hands on her.
I shouldn’t have been so hooked on their easy fun together. I should have made myself busy talking with the other guests and catching up with Nonna. And I tried. I really tried. But when Nonna looked at me with that far too astute gaze of hers, and asked if I felt I was missing out, the smile tugging at her lips telling me she saw far too much, I knew I’d all but failed.
It was the cue I needed to make a hasty exit, citing work as the excuse. I’d been there long enough, surely? But in reality I wasn’t ready to admit that I was jealous. Jealous and envious of their easy camaraderie. The fun so readily available to them while I sat on the sidelines.
And I know I’m the older brother...the serious, responsible one. I know fun doesn’t come easily to me, not when my family is near. But not once did they seek to include me. I’d been lumped in with the older generation and forgotten about, save for Faye. She would send the occasional look, one that was more curious than anything else.
She’s doing it now. As we all sit round the table for dinner, the chatter incessant, her eyes keep finding mine...or is it that I keep pulling her my way because I can’t stop seeking her out? It’s as though I’m magnetically drawn to her and no amount of mental talk will stop me from doing it.