He was somehow on his feet before her, blocking her way. “If you’re not going to abuse me, how about you use your mouth for something else?” He waited until her chagrin seethed and blasted out of her in a searing glare before adding in provocative pseudo innocence, “Eat?”
“It’s safer for you if I’m not near cutlery tonight.”
“Nonsense. I’m not in the least worried. What’s the worst you could do with disposable ones?”
This was beyond weird. Had he always had a sense of humor, but just hadn’t turned it on in her presence? Why did he have it perpetually on now?
Giving up trying to understand this baffling entity, yet refusing to give him an answer, she turned away, headed to the lavatory. She needed a breather before the next round.
When she came out, she faltered, trying to breathe around a lump that materialized in her throat.
He’d taken off his jacket. And had undone a few buttons on his shirt. And rolled up his sleeves.
It probably wouldn’t affect her any more if he’d taken off all his clothes. Okay, it would, but this was bad enough. The imagination that was intimate with his every inch was filling in the spaces, or rather, taking off the rest of his clothes.
He smiled that slow smile of his, no doubt noting the drool spreading at her feet. Then he extended that beautifully formed—and from experience, very talented—hand in invitation.
She covered the space between them as if by his will alone, unable to stop devouring his magnificence.
Reality again outstripped imagination or memory. The breadth and power of his shoulders and chest had owed nothing to tailoring. They were even magnified now that they were covered only in a layer of finest silk. His arms bulged with strength and symmetry under the material that obscured and highlighted at once. Those corded forearms dusted with black hair tapered to solid wrists. His abdomen was hard, his waist narrow, as were his hips, before his thighs flowed with strength and virility on the way down to endless legs.
Magnificent wasn’t even a fitting description.
He sat back down on the couch, patting where he wanted her to sit. On his lap.
She wanted to. To just lose her mind all over him, let him seduce her, own her, drain her of will and blow her mind with pleasure, again and again and again, for as long as it took him to have enough of her this time, and to hell with caution and the lessons of harsh experience.
Before she decided to take a flying jump into the abyss, he engulfed her hand in the warm power of his and gave a tug that was persuasion and urgency itself. She tumbled over him, her skirt riding up as her thighs splayed to straddle him.
The moment she felt him against her, between her legs, the rock hardness and heat of his chest and his erection pressing against her breast and core, arousal surged so fiercely she almost fainted. Then his lips opened over her neck, and she did swoon, melting over him.
His hands convulsed in the depths of her hair, harnessing her for his devouring as his mouth took pulls of her flesh, as if he’d suck her heartbeats, her essence into him. Her head fell back, arching her neck, giving him fuller access, surrendering her wariness and heartache to his pleasuring.
She needed this, needed him, come what may.
“You feel and taste even better than all the memories that tormented me, Gloria mia.”
She jerked and moaned when he said her name the way he used to, Italianizing it, making it his. It inflamed her to hear it, maddened her. The way he moved against her, breathed her in, touched and kneaded and suckled her…it was all too much. And too little. She needed more. Everything. His mouth and hands and potency all over her, inside her.
“Vincenzo…”
The same desperation reverberating inside her emanated from his great body in shock waves. Then he heaved beneath her, swept her around, brought her under him on the couch, bore down on her with all of his greed and urgency. Spreading her thighs, he hooked them around his hips, pressed between them, his daunting hardness grinding against her entrance through their clothes. Her back arched deeply to accommodate him, a cry escaping from her very recesses, at the yearned-for feel of him, weight of him, sight of him as propped himself above her, his eyes molten steel with the vehemence of his passion.
“Gloriosa, divina, Gloria mia…”
Then he swooped down and his lips clamped on hers, moist, branding, his tongue thrusting deep, singeing her with pleasure, breaching her with need, draining her of moans and reason. Pressure built—behind her eyes, inside her chest, deep in her loins. Her hands convulsed on his arms, digging into his muscles, everything inside her surging, gushing, needing anything…anything he’d do to her. His fingers and tongue and teeth exploiting her every secret, his manhood filling the void at her core, thrusting her to oblivion….
“We’ll be taking off in five minutes, Principe.”
The voice rang in a metallic echo, not registering in the delirium. It was only when he stopped his plundering kisses that it crashed into her awareness, that it made sense.
He froze over her for a long moment, his lips still fused to hers. He moved again, took her lips over and over in urgent, clinging kisses as if he couldn’t help himself, as if he was gulping what he could of her taste before he could have no more. Then muttering something savage under his breath, he severed their meld, groaning as if was scraping off his skin. It was how she felt, too, as his body separated from hers.
She lay back, stunned, unable to move. Dismay at the barely aborted insanity drenched her, even as need still hammered at her, demanding his assuagement. His heavy-lidded gaze regarded her in denuding intensity, as if savoring the sight of what he’d done to her. Then he reached for her, caressed and kneaded her as he helped her up on the couch.
He secured her seat belt before buckling his as the engines, which she realized had been on for a while now, revved higher and the jet started moving.
They were really taking off.
Everything was going out of control, too far, too fast.
And she had no idea where they were going. Figuratively and literally.
The latter had a definite answer. And in an existence that had no answers, past or future, she had to have at least that.
“Where are we going?”
At her unsteady question, he pulled her closer, his eyes blazing with unspent desire. “How about we keep it a surprise?”
“How about I go demand that your pilot drop me off?”
He tutted. “I see I have to surprise you with no warning next time.”
“Since you can’t take me somewhere without warning unless you develop teleportation, too…”