‘It’s not, but that’s good to know.’ His hand continued to wreak havoc on her. ‘You changed careers and forged another life for yourself all alone. Did you at any point seek another man’s bed to alleviate your loneliness?’ he asked thickly.
She knew how weak and pathetic responding in the positive would make her look. But she couldn’t lie. Not when she’d just experienced an incredible earth-moving event.
She threaded her fingers through his wet hair. ‘I was alone, not lonely. But no, Romeo. You were the last man I slept with.’
His chest moved in a deep inhalation and his eyes filled once again with that primitive, razor-sharp hunger that threatened to obliterate her.
The hand on her belly trailed to her thighs, his fingers digging into her skin in an urgent caress as his head dropped to hers once more. Falling into the kiss, Maisie gladly let sensation take over again, moaning when her hand trailed over taut muscle and bone to finally close on his steely length.
She caressed him as he’d once hoarsely instructed her to, a thrill coursing through her when he groaned brokenly against her lips.
All too soon, he was rolling on the condom he’d plucked from his trunks. Bearing her back, he parted her thighs and hooked his arms under her knees.
He stared deep into her eyes and thrust home in one smooth lunge.
‘Oh!’
His growl of male satisfaction reverberated to her very soul. Her fingers speared into his hair as he began to pleasure her with long, slow strokes, each one pulling a groan from her that only seemed to turn him on harder.
He kissed her mouth, her throat, her nipples, with a hunger that grew with each penetration, until she was sure he wouldn’t stop until she was completely ravished.
‘You’re mine. Say it,’ he demanded gutturally, when her world began to fracture.
‘Romeo...’
‘I want to hear it, Maisie.’ He slid deep and stopped, the harsh, primitive request demanding a response.
Something shifted inside her, a deep and profound knowledge sliding home that once she admitted this there would be no going back. That she would be giving herself over to him completely, body and soul.
He angled his hips, the move a blatant demonstration that he had all the power, that he controlled every fibre of her being.
‘I...’ She groaned when he moved again, delivering that subtle thrust that sent her to the very edge of consciousness.
‘Tell me!’
‘I’m yours...yours. Please...’ Her nails dug into his back, and she surged up to take his mouth with hers. ‘Please, Romeo. I’m yours...take me,’ she whispered brokenly.
Romeo moved, his senses roaring from the words, from her tight and wet heat, from the touch of her hands on his skin. He couldn’t get enough. He wanted more. All of her, holding absolutely nothing back. He reared back so he could look into her eyes, to see for himself that she meant it, that she belonged to him completely.
Her eyes met his, the raw pleasure coursing through her shining in the stunning blue depths. There was no fight, no holding back, just a beautiful surrender that cracked something hard and heavy in his chest, bringing in the light and abating the tortured, weighted-down bitterness for the first time in his life.
The sense that he could fly free, that he could find even deeper and truer oblivion in her arms than he had their first time in Palermo, slashed across his consciousness, making his thrusts less measured, the need to achieve that transcendental plane a call to his very soul.
He looked down at her, saw her eyes grow dazed and dark as her bliss encroached. Letting go of her legs, he speared his fingers into her hair and kissed her.
‘Now, gattina mia,’ he croaked, knowing he was at the edge of surrender himself.
‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she replied. Then she was thrashing beneath him, her sex clamping around his in a series of convulsions that sent him over the edge.
With a loud roar, Romeo flew, barely able to keep from crushing her as he found a release so powerful, had he believed in heaven he would’ve been certain he’d truly found it in that moment.
He came back down to the touch of her hands trailing up and down his back, her mouth moving against his throat in a benediction of soft kisses.
Again another blaze of memory slashed across his mind, a sense of déjà vu throwing him back five years, to his hotel suite in Palermo. The feeling that he was raw and exposed, that the woman beneath him wasn’t one he could bed and discard, pounding through him. Romeo was certain it was why he’d left as he had the next morning, ensuring he left no trace of himself behind.