A Dangerous Solace

He laid her down on the bed and, holding her hands on the mattress, began to kiss her. Long, slow, mind-blowing kisses, seducing her beyond reason with only his mouth, for the moment denying her his body.

She was aware of him pulling off the shirt, could feel his chest hair abrading her breasts, and she gave an involuntary gasp as his thumb ran over the seam of her sex, parting the folds, dipping inside. She stopped thinking.

Oh, God, everything about her was conspiring to make this easy for him. She gripped him around the neck. She didn’t want it to be easy. He didn’t deserve easy—not after what he’d done to her.

She felt him kiss the curve of her neck, murmur endearments in Italian, felt his big hands splay over her breasts, tugging at her nipples as he lifted his head to kiss her. The feel of his mouth was so compelling on hers—the slide of his tongue, hers joining his, in an echo of the feel of his fingers against her intimate flesh. He made a low, thrilling growl when she found the bare skin of his chest and tangled her fingers in his hair, dragged circles around his flat male nipples, pressed her mouth there and licked him.

He tasted like salt and male skin and Gianluca. The reason she knew the taste of him flew out of her head, but she did, and it made her crazy with want for him. She slid her hand down to unzip him, but he was doing it himself, shucking his jeans and moving over her with all the predatory grace of a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it.

Ava flexed her hand over the rigid length of him and watched as his beautiful features grew taut and pronounced. She circled the head with her thumb, wondering if she should be worried or happy about his size.

She needed to tell him she wasn’t always able to let go, that she might disappoint him. Tears built up in the back of her eyes and she blinked rapidly to stop them from falling. She didn’t want this to be a failure. She didn’t want to wreck it like she wrecked everything else.

Even as her anxieties drove through her thoughts like an express train her thighs fell open naturally to cradle him. But he wasn’t in a hurry. He smoothed her hair off her shoulder, fingered it as if the silky texture fascinated him, and then laid the gentlest kiss on the top of one breast, moving agonisingly slowly to her nipple, to the curve of her hip, her belly...

‘If you could just—’ she began.

He lifted his mouth momentarily. ‘If I could what, dolcezza?’ he asked, and rimmed her belly button with his tongue.

Ava’s stomach convulsed and she gripped the sheets. ‘It takes me a while,’ she asserted breathlessly, even as it occurred to her that it wasn’t taking her very long at all. She was throbbing like a heartbeat between her thighs. ‘There are certain things you need to do—ways I need to be touched—oh.’

He slid a finger inside her, and then another, and she closed her eyes, lost for a moment in the sensations.

He was speaking to her in Italian again as she shuddered under him.

‘Is that good?’

She recognised that bit of English amidst the Italian. ‘Good—yes. Oh, yes,’ Ava whimpered, and bit her lip as she tried not to cry out. More sensation streaked through her. But his other hand was stroking her face. He was dragging his thumb over her mouth until she was sucking on it, biting down on him as her lower body arched off the mattress.

‘Mia ragazza bella,’ he told her in a hushed rough voice. ‘Lasciarsi andare.’

‘Luca,’ she sobbed, and the moment before she cascaded into a million pieces of pleasure she had the satisfaction of seeing his watchful expression turn wild.

He was still watching her with fierce, glittering eyes as he positioned himself, powerfully male above her, and Ava could see the telltale tension in his body as he held himself back. She lifted her body in response, reaching up to push her fingers through his hair.

As he filled her his careful restraint was almost as erotic as the sensation of her tender tissues expanding to encompass him. He watched her the whole time.

‘Luca...’ she breathed as he sank deep.

‘Good, my sweet Ava?’

Her emotions did a figure-eight in her chest, tying her up in knots.

He pushed and their hips locked.

He said something in Italian, in such a way that she knew this was as good for him as it was for her. Perhaps better. His body tremored with the strain of holding back and she smoothed her palms over his hair-roughened chest, wanting the intimacy of this to be preserved in her memory.

For a moment everything seemed to slow down. It’s not your first time. A faint voice rippled through her senses. Your body remembers him. You remember him...

‘Now,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Luca, now.’

Her hips lifted of their own accord as he began to move deeper. His eyes didn’t leave hers and he wasn’t asking her if it was good this time. He was driving her to where they both wanted to be and she found she didn’t have to think about his rhythm. Her body took it up like a drumbeat.