“That’s just sex,” she finally found her voice but hardly sounded convincing. He merely smiled, lifting his other hand until he had her face framed with his thumbs stroking across her cheekbones and his fingertips burrowing into the soft hair at her temples.
“It doesn’t solve anything,” she continued to protest, with the same lack of conviction as before.
“Maybe not,” he shrugged without concern. “But it feels fantastic…”
“But we don’t do it right,” she murmured, thinking about the fact that he’d never kissed her, not on the lips, not once… his fingers stilled and she realised, rather belatedly, that he may have misconstrued her comment, which was fine with her, if it meant that he would stop this blatant seduction of her senses.
“What do you mean?” She could tell how much it cost him to keep the affronted heat out of his voice.
“I always thought that one day I would make love with my husband,” she confessed on a whisper. “But we don’t do that, do we? We have sex… we…” she used a word that she had never in her life uttered before and Sandro flinched slightly in response to it, the soothing stroke of his fingertips stopped abruptly.
“Don’t use language like that,” he growled. “It doesn’t suit you!”
“Well, it’s what you once called it,” she defended herself hotly.
“I would never…”
“You did…” she interrupted what she knew would be a denial. “On our wedding night, after the first time…. I tried to… to…” she blushed as she remembered her naivety back then. She had reached over to snuggle with him and he had moved all the way to the edge of the bed in an effort to get away from her. “Well, anyway, you told me not to mistake what we did with any act of love. That it was much more basic than that. Just sex, you said, just… well… you know…”
His hands had dropped from her face to her shoulders and his eyes narrowed on her painfully humiliated face. His grip tightened on her shoulders and she squirmed slightly before it let up and he kneaded her shoulders slightly.
“Theresa, I was pretty hammered on our wedding night,” she nodded her eyes bright with tears as she remembered how long he had made her wait for him. Her innocent, eager anticipation had been dashed when the dignified, distant husband who had left her all alone in their hotel suite had returned three hours later, so drunk that he could barely hold himself upright. He had fallen onto the bed and immediately passed out, leaving Theresa shattered. Two hours later, his skilful hands on her body had brought her out of a restless doze and he had strummed at and played with her body like it was a finely-tuned musical instrument, making her a willing slave to his every command.
Such had been her response that it had barely registered that his lips hadn’t once touched hers. He had kissed just about every other part of her body and afterwards, while she strove to maintain the closeness between them, he had all-but destroyed her fragile spirit by denigrating the act. She could tell that Sandro was recalling the events of that night too and his eyes dropped to where her hands were still restlessly fidgeting with the pencil which had fallen into her lap. He dropped one huge hand over hers to stop the movement.
“I resented you very much,” he admitted. “Because I felt trapped…”
“Wrong tense, Sandro,” she whispered. “Your resentment is still very current.”
“Things change, Theresa.”
“Some things are inexcusable, Sandro,” she whispered painfully. “And unforgivable.”
“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” he growled in frustration and she dragged her hands out from under his.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you for the last three days,” she pointed out and he bit off a curse before getting up abruptly. Theresa jumped up too, to avoid being intimidated by his height. But she had miscalculated, he was still too close to her and when she got up, her breasts brushed up the length of his body from groin to torso. They both immediately went still as awareness simmered between them. Theresa made a soft sound and attempted to put some distance between them but Sandro’s arms came up to circle her loosely, his hands meeting in the small of her back and the tips of his fingers just brushing against the slight swell of her backside. Her own hands came up to firmly brace against his chest, she wanted to push him away but somehow her hands were idly stroking instead of exerting any force.
His large hands moved down to fully cup her backside and he lifted her slightly until she could feel his sudden arousal. He lazily pushed himself against her, dipping his head until his mouth was next to her ear.
“Despite everything, cara, you want me,” he whispered, his breath hot and moist against her ear. “And God knows I want you too…”
“Just sex,” she protested weakly.
“Maybe,” he nibbled her earlobe gently, before moving down to nuzzle the sensitive spot just below her ear, something he knew made her crazy. It didn’t fail this time, as she gasped and wound her arms around his neck to push herself closer to his hard body. His tongue gently circled the highly-sensitive erogenous zone and Theresa moaned wanting more. His wicked, hot mouth moved down to her throat, licking, sucking and nibbling the exposed skin along the way. Theresa buried her face in his short, soft hair and muffled a moan of pure sizzling lust.
His hands were busily yanking her blouse out of the waistband of her skirt and they both groaned when his hands finally made contact with the naked skin of her back. He muttered something in Italian, before he swept his hands up to the clasp of her bra, unhooked it expertly and brought his hands around and under the lacy little B-cups. She cried out and arched violently against him when his thumbs found her sensitive nipples and he half-laughed, half-groaned at her wild reaction to his touch.