“I felt nothing, really. It wasn’t about feelings. It should have been about physical gratification.”
“Did you feel a fire inside you that could only be extinguished by physical union with any of them?”
“Uh, no, nothing like that. But I didn’t hate the sight of them. They didn’t fire me up, but they didn’t repulse me, either.”
“So you were trying to force yourself to eat when you weren’t hungry, things which from the scent and look of them, weren’t appetizing at all. Is it any wonder you didn’t enjoy your meal?”
She stared at him before hooting with laughter. “That’s priceless. And perfect. I was trying to eat limp, taste-free, homogenous-looking veggies because I was told they were good for me.”
“Limp, eh?” He watched her wipe tears away, stopped himself from gathering her up again. She needed to sort this out in her mind before he took it to the realm of the flesh, where even he had no experience. Not with what would happen between them. “And how did I make you feel when you first saw me? How am I making you feel now?”
Her eyes widened, wonder seeping in, inching away agitation. “I saw you, and everything around me…vanished. Everything inside me started…tingling. I ached every time you moved and spoke. It got so bad, I wanted to scream. But it was also so good. Incredible. Like everything was enhanced, like there was this super charge of…life powering me. You made me feel with parts of me I was unaware of. And it hasn’t stopped since, not even when you weren’t there. I have only to think of you for you to affect me. Even when something else forces itself into my focus, you exist here now…”
Her hands flew to her head, pressed convulsively, before cascading over her face, her neck, her breasts, her abdomen and then lower, where they crossed and stroked their way from her hips upward until she was hugging her own arms.
He felt as if she had taken him inside every part of her, had him wrapped around her now.
“You’re everywhere, a burn my blood carries to every inch of skin, a pressure building inside me. And then you look at me, talk to me, and it all becomes overwhelming. Flames burst out wherever your gaze lands. Currents bolt through me at the sound of your voice, at your touch. But it’s your desire that…that…” She stopped, consternation clenching her face. “I’m doing a lousy job here. I can’t describe it. And that was the easy part, the physical one.”
He did have superhuman powers. He bit back at the urges sinking their fangs in him, didn’t devour her in one go per his original impulse. Even though he was almost certain he’d give her as explosive a pleasure as he’d get.
The “almost” part stopped him. That and the need to show her the truth. About herself. About what he felt for her. There’d be endless time later for all levels of unrestrained mating.
He moved until his thigh brushed hers. Her chest heaved, her nipples conquering the thickness of her blouse through her open jacket. The creaminess of her skin had long disappeared in a tide of pink. Her lips were glazed with the flush of blood, skin taut over swelling flesh. His mental possession was doing this to her. He had the power to make her feel he was ravaging her for real just by imagining it so fiercely.
His forefinger skimmed her nose, her lips, down, until it rested at the edge of a now-visible cleavage, tormented them both with gossamer glimpses of what would be. “So when you feel all that, what do you expect it would be like with me?”
She moaned. “I-I don’t know, okay? I just need to feel you, be with you.”
He held her at arm’s length. He couldn’t just grab her. He had to prove to her that she was a sensual being of the highest order, attuned to such a level of sensitivity only a specific vibe—his—would release her potential, that any other’s had been bound to grate, to even injure.
Yet he couldn’t just claim that she’d been made for him, as he was now certain. He could only show her. And how he would.
But she was looking at him as if he’d stuck a knife in her gut. She wrenched herself from his detaining hands, almost ran away. He was so surprised that she was in his reception area, scooping up her briefcase when he caught up with her.
He put himself between her and the elevator. He had to be careful here. He didn’t know what was upsetting her now.
“Any hope you’ll explain where you think you’re going?”
“Away. Before I mutilate the mood I just murdered.”
That was the one thing he hadn’t extrapolated as a reason for her sudden flight. Her surprises would never cease.
“I bet when you spent all this time cajoling me, you thought you were in for hot sex, not a sex therapy session with a thirty-year-old frigid divorcée.” She took a step back, preparing to circumvent him. “No harm done, though. I hope. So—”
He dragged her to him, slammed her length against his, the collision a need, a must. Her briefcase slapped the floor as she arched into him, a carnal sound keening from her, her hands clawing an anchor in his flesh.
He wanted her to sink in all the way, penetrate him to the bone. His growl sounded feral as he snatched her off her feet, aching at how totally she distrusted her influence, how she’d been sought out only by men who had dealt her self-esteem and expectations of others one blow after another. It only made her trust in him that much more precious.
He captured her hands, withdrew enough to take one to his heart, the other to the erection that hadn’t subsided since he’d seen her. “So…which part of me seems not in the mood, bellissima?”
“This-this isn’t just a typical male reaction? All my pathetic confessions didn’t turn you off, here?” She freed the hand on his erection, pressed it to his head.
He pressed back, showing her he needed her assuagement. “I don’t have male reactions if ‘here’ doesn’t sanction them. And none of what you told me was pathetic. It ranged from criminal to inept on the men’s side, and tragic to futile on yours. But I am honored beyond expression that when it came to me, you knew, like I did, that nothing that happened before applies to us. And it doesn’t. This is us, and you have nothing to worry about. Not now, not ever.” He turned his lips into her palm, planted his pledge. “You’ll find only pampering and pleasure in my bed, support and protection everywhere else. I promise.”
She surged forward, tears brimming over, and hugged breath out of him. “Oh, Durante, just take me. Take me before I wakeup.”