He towered above her and she felt so protected in his arms. Holding her as though he cradled something precious. Moving slightly, she stood up on her toes. Pressed her lips to his. Unlike the last time their lips touched he didn’t move. His mouth soft against hers. She wasn’t sure what else to do now, so she lingered for a few moments, hoping, before breaking away.
He’d done nothing, so that was that. Her great experiment. She could tick that off the list. Kissing Matteo twice. Brilliant.
Then he smiled. It was a slow metamorphosis into wickedness, the way his lips curled in that knowing way of his. He lowered his head to her as she tilted her head up. Hoping and praying that he was going to kiss her back. Instead, he moved his lips to her ear. Said nothing for a moment, seemed to simply breathe her in as if he wanted to absorb her. His breath caressing the side of her neck, making her tremble with desire.
‘Do you want me to kiss you back?’ he murmured.
She hadn’t asked for what she wanted. Now he was forcing her to tell him. The whole of her was a pinpoint of yearning. Her breasts ached, nipples hard points in her bra. Needing his touch to soothe them. She’d thought she’d known emptiness, but she’d had no idea. This. Imagining him filling her. It was like an obsession, a drumbeat pounding inside.
She knew what would happen if she said yes, and she didn’t care. It was time to be brave.
‘Yes.’
He moved then. His nose gently drifting over the soft skin behind her ear. The sensation overwhelming her. She relaxed into his arms as he slid one hand onto her backside, drawing her close and flush against the hardness of him. Then his lips began to move, skimming over her neck. The tip of something slick and smooth drifting over her skin, then cool air. His tongue. As if he was tasting her.
Matteo gave...not a moan as such, but a pained exhale. It mirrored her own.
He lifted his lips from her body and looked down at her. His gaze almost assessing. She knew what this was, a pause to allow her to say stop. No. She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted this moment to never end.
After a few heartbeats his assessment, or whatever it was, ended. He dropped his head and simplyclaimedher.She’d marvelled at how soft his lips were on such an uncompromising man, but there was nothing soft about the kiss as his mouth took hers. Her own began to move, like instinct. Wanting more, wanting everything. His tongue teased her lips and she opened to him, letting him in. An entrée to the main meal. Somehow, he managed to make the kiss so many things. Coaxing, encouraging, demanding. She simply fell into it. Let it overtake her. Rejoicing at his hardness against her softness.
Then the kiss slowed, but she chased more. What if that was all she got tonight? Her body was ready to fuse with him. To become part of him. It was as if she’d die if she didn’t. Needing him to fill her.
He gave a wicked, low chuckle that rippled right through Louisa’s body. It could have sounded mocking except for his arousal pressing, insistent, against her. She’d done that to him. Made this uncompromising man wanther. Matteo traced a finger down the side of her face, her neck, the top of her chest, a light, feather-like stroke. Barely there yet it set her on fire. Her nipples burned as that finger made its way lower, towards the top of her breast and then...
It stopped. She whimpered. Wanton and needy.
‘Am I neglecting you? Do you need something more?’ He leaned in, his lips close to her ear. ‘Do you want me to stroke your nipples, ease their ache? Make you come?’
His breath feathered over her throat as he kissed there. A hand sliding up her waist to rest just under her left breast, waiting for permission.
‘Yes. Please.’
His lips found hers again as his left arm drew her close once more and his right...it slid up, the lightest of brushes over her nipple, which beaded and tightened under his ministrations, heat spearing between her legs. Setting her on fire.
Could she come like this? In the dark of night when she allowed the fantasies from her drawings to overtake her, her own orgasms seemed to be hard-fought yet in some way feeble and lacking.
Now, she was overwhelmed by the sensation. The conflicting feeling of being so full yet so empty, all at the same time. He kept stroking her nipple, and she began to move against him, wanting and wanting...justmore. It was like the most exquisite torture. She didn’t know how she’d survive it. Didn’t know if she even wanted to. Any desire for self-preservation simply fled under his talented hands and mouth. In this moment she would have done anything for him.
There was no slowing, he simply tore his lips from hers, breaths coming in heavy gusts. Her own lips well used, plump and tingling.
‘I want you. I want everything.’ He growled as if the words were wrenched from him, almost sounding inhuman with the need he clearly felt himself.
The power of that tore through her. That she could do this to a man who no doubt had vast experience. Who could likely have the pick of any woman he wanted, and still he wantedher. She stood at a crossroads. All her life had been about safety. Being a passenger. Now, she wanted to take control. To take something for herself.
Matteo. She wanted him. She’d had so little voice of her own, as a child. Trying to find it as a broken teenager. Yet even into adulthood she’d held something back. No longer.
‘I want everything, too.’
‘And what do you think “everything” is?’
He was making her say it, be explicit. So there’d be no misunderstanding. If she made this choice, it was because she’d voiced her desire openly, with clarity of mind.
She’d never wanted anything more.
‘Sex. You.’
His exhale sounded part pained, part relieved. ‘Take my hand.’
