She didn’t need guarantees of anything to have fun. He had been brutally honest and she had learnt a valuable lesson from that honesty: take what was on offer and ask for nothing more or else walk away right now...
‘I was tactless,’ Sergio murmured, drawing back and staring down at her. ‘Forgive me.’
He reached for the bar of soap, rubbed at it until it lathered and then began to soap her, his body pressing against hers as though they were doing a very slow dance together. He soaped her back, her buttocks and then her stomach.
By the time his hands made it to her breasts she was no longer thinking straight. In fact she wasn’t thinking at all.
‘I’d suck your nipples,’ he murmured, ‘but this cramped space won’t allow that sort of luxury. Next time we do anything under running water it’s not going to be here. You’ll have to settle for me playing with them instead... Like it? How much...? You have fantastic nipples...nice and big and very, very suckable... Shall I tell you what I’d really like to do now?’
‘No! You’re turning me on too much...’
‘I like that. We could head for the bed, but I’m enjoying this experience...enjoying thinking about how much more we could do if we had just a little more space... I could get down on my knees and taste you down there...would you like that?’
‘Stop...’ she begged.
She wanted him inside her so badly that it hurt, but he was right. The shower cubicle was fashioned on the same small scale as everything else in the flat. She couldn’t even let him lift her onto him—couldn’t wrap her legs around his body, couldn’t let him penetrate her that way. Not without paramedics getting involved.
‘Play with me,’ he urged. ‘There are other ways of getting some satisfaction...’
He moved under the water, his hand pressed against the tiled wall, his powerful body jerking as she excited him with her hand until he had descended from his climax.
Her body was craving fulfilment. She parted her legs and moaned softly as he slipped his fingers into her. With his hand on her back, he manoeuvred her until he found the perfect position, the perfect place to bring her to her own shuddering orgasm.
She flung back her head, not caring that he was looking at her in her most intensely private moment, and her whole body stiffened as those magical fingers stroked and rubbed, fast then slow, hard then gentle, taking her to the very peak of physical pleasure.
The water was beginning to go cold when she was once again breathing evenly, her eyes drowsy with satisfaction.
Sergio switched off the shower and then dried her off, very tenderly.
She was spent. She felt like a rag doll, quite happy for him to take her in hand.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you by being blunt,’ he said, once he’d sat her down in the sitting room, with her bathrobe around her and a cup of coffee in her hand. ‘I just wanted to make sure that there weren’t any mixed messages.’
‘I know.’ Susie sipped her coffee and realised this was what it was—his way of gently but firmly reminding her of the conditions for whatever relationship they enjoyed. It wasn’t going to last. He was giving her an out.
The dozens and dozens of roses were proof of how much he wanted her...but if she didn’t agree to his terms and conditions there would be no more of those. The pursuit would be well and truly over.
‘I’m not a kid, whatever you might believe. I’m not after your money either. I can look after myself, and I understand perfectly what you’re saying to me. No involvement except of a sexual kind.’ She shrugged. ‘A little light-hearted fun...sounds like a brilliant idea...’
Sergio dealt her a slashing smile. ‘Good.’ Midnight-blue eyes fixed on her with immense satisfaction. ‘Come lie on me, in that case, and tell me all about those paintings I saw in your bedroom...’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE WRETCHED WEDDING was here. In the thrill of being with Sergio she had forgotten about it, even though her mother and her sister had made sure to remind her at frequent intervals, had quizzed her as to whether she had bought a dress.
Susie wondered whether they expected her to show up in an artist’s smock with a paintbrush stuck behind her ear. Or maybe wearing a pair of jeans and a tee shirt and trainers, because she always left the ‘looking smart’ stuff to Alex, who did it so much better. Alex was tall, leggy, brunette, sophisticated. Clothes just always seemed to hang better on her.