‘Not tonight.’ He grinned.
Their eyes met and the air sparked with something neither had ever felt before. Though Pietro had slept with more women than he could easily remember, he’d never taken a woman’s virginity. Even as a young man he had gravitated towards experienced lovers. This was new ground for them both.
How could he reassure her? Drive that doubt from her mind properly?
A strange sense of uncertainty ached in his gut. But she pushed up on her elbows and stared at him.
‘I want this,’ she said with soft confidence. ‘I don’t care what happens next. I want to feel this.’
He nodded and lowered himself onto the bed, kissing her slowly, sensually, marvelling at the feeling of flesh on flesh. Her naked breasts were flattened by his hair-roughened torso. His arousal was close to her—so close he could take her. The way she was trembling beneath him was a reaction to the newness of this, even as her eyes looked at him as though he was the air she needed to sustain life.
He dragged his mouth lower, rolling one of her nipples with his tongue while his hand slid down and splayed her legs wide, giving him more room, more access.
‘You tell me if you need time,’ he said thickly, not even sure the command made sense.
But she understood. She understood as though he’d spoken in a language made just for them.
She nodded and he lifted his head, one hand cupping her cheek as he kissed her hard. His tongue was passion and flame and she writhed beneath him, lifting her hips, searching for him, welcoming his invasion.
And God knew he wanted that too.
He pushed into her gently, gliding only his tip into her warm, tight core, giving her time to adjust to each incremental sensation as he filled her anew.
She moaned into his mouth as he moved, and all his control was required to stop himself taking her as he wanted to—hard and fast. He pulled out slowly, then pushed in deeper, before removing himself again. As he did so each time he took more and more of her and her muscles relaxed, welcoming him deeper, without restraint, without reserve, until he was pressing against the barrier of her innocence.
He kissed her, holding her tight as he thrust past it, removing it forever, imprinting himself on her as the first lover of her life. The first man who’d touched her like this.
Finally his whole length was sheathed by her, wrapped up in her, squeezed by her, and he paused, giving them both a moment to adjust to how it felt. He pushed his face higher so he could see her properly, could read her face. He saw wetness in her eyes and something turned in his gut.
‘You’re in pain.’
He moved to pull out of her but she shook her head and wrapped her legs around his waist.
‘No, no, it’s...’ She shook her head and her smile was tight. Self-conscious. ‘It’s fine.’
Perfect, she amended inwardly. Everything about the moment was more perfect than she could ever have fantasised or hoped. It was sublime.
‘“Fine” is a good starting point,’ he said darkly. ‘But it requires improvement.’
And then he moved quickly, his body thrusting into her and pulling out, each movement sparking an electrical current beneath her skin until she was almost out of breath. The assault on her senses was unlike anything she’d expected. Even when he’d touched her and brought her to orgasm it had been different from this. Now every nerve-ending in her body was twitching, as though he was stirring her from the inside out.
And he was, she realised, arching her back as the feelings began to overtake everything.
The galaxy was bright and hot and she was intimately aware of her part in it: like flotsam, bright and floating, powerless and yet powerful. A contradiction in her heart.
She dug her nails into his shoulders as wave after wave of pleasure swallowed her, devoured her, making her eyes leak hot tears she didn’t even feel. Only when he caught one with his tongue and traced it up her cheek did she realise she was crying—but she couldn’t stop.
She was incandescent, the explosion of her pleasure like a fire in her blood. He held her as she came, held her tight, reassured her, whispered to her in Italian, his words stirring her up more, hotter, faster. She clung to him as the tornado swirled around her, held him as though he alone could save her, and then she cried out, sweat beading on her brow as the storm broke.
Pleasure saturated the room, thickened her breath. She clung to him until the craziness slowed and she was once more herself.
But she was not herself. She’d never be herself again. She had shaved off pieces of her being and handed them to him, bound them into his soul and his flesh, uniting herself with him even if he didn’t want that.
She fell back onto the bed. The beauty of what they’d shared was incredible. Yet it was almost immediately eclipsed by a sense of guilt. Of self-doubt.