fires of desire licked through her. Her nipples, long puckered into nubs of excruciating need, hardened further. Without releasing her fingers, Cesare settled down beside her and placed one hand below her breast. Her temperature shot up another notch.
‘Touch me, please,’ she pleaded. But he just rested his hand there, under the curve of her breast, while he leisurely sucked on her finger.
Liquid heat oozed between her thighs. Her lids grew heavy as the motion of his mouth tugged her closer to the edge of ecstasy.
His hand edged closer to her breast.
Moaning with desperation, she tried to move closer to his touch. With a final, hot lick he released her finger. His gaze blazed down at her, dissecting her every reaction. ‘Not yet.’
Pressure built in her nipples, almost as painful as the relentless heat pulsing between her legs. Just when she thought she couldn’t stand the pressure any longer, his hand traced the underside of her breast. She jerked in protest and moaned as he started to perform slow, excruciating circles on her flesh. With every rotation bringing him close but not close enough to the aching pinnacle, Ava feared she would die from need.
Finally, at the point of begging, he slanted his mouth over hers, and closed his thumb and forefinger over her nipple.
Her cry was swallowed up into his mouth. Her orgasm slammed into her with the force of a tornado, twisting and tossing her high, leaving her no room to breathe.
Firelight exploded behind her lids as ecstasy awakened and tore through her. Through it all, Cesare kept his mouth on hers, lapping up her cries of bliss.
The intensity of his kiss lessened as she slowly floated back to earth. When she could bring herself to open her eyes, he was gazing down at her, his eyes full of heat and something close to wonder.
‘You’re still so responsive, tesoro mio,’ he rasped. ‘I thought my fevered imagination had conjured it up in the hallway two weeks ago, but I know different now. You’ve never lost it.’
‘Does that please you?’ she asked in a husky voice.
‘That sex between us has always been raw and intensely special? I’m a red-blooded Latin man, am I not?’ came the smug response.
Her fingers closed over his rock-hard bicep, renewed need clawing through her. ‘Maybe you should demonstrate, before I die of anticipation?’
A curious expression flitted over his face, gone quickly before she could decipher it. She started to ask him what was wrong, but lost her train of thought when he chose that moment to kiss her again.
By the time he raised his head to rasp, ‘Are you still on the Pill?’ she could barely string coherent words together to answer.
‘Yes,’ she croaked.
He recaptured her mouth, then rolled them over so she was on top of him. The first touch of his bare chest against her breasts sent her fevered pulse rocketing once more. Unable to resist, she rubbed herself against him. His deep groan only fed her hunger.
* * *
Against her thigh, Cesare’s erection pulsed, hot and insistent. She rolled her hips against him, the friction driving her quickly to distraction. His hands clasped her bottom, impatient fingers diving beneath the elastic to brand her flesh.
Another moan filled the room, her heart’s frenzied beats echoing in her ears until she could hear nothing but the promise of bliss, feel nothing but the equally intoxicating pounding of Cesare’s heart.
One hand fisted in her hair and drew her back. Tawny heat-filled eyes caressed her face. ‘Perdono, cara, but I have to do this.’
Before she could ask what he meant, the sound of tearing fabric ripped through the room. ‘God, that is so macho,’ she teased on a pant.
He grinned. ‘I don’t have time to ease it from your hips.’
‘What do you have time for?’
‘This,’ he whispered, raised his head and rolled his tongue over one nipple before sucking it into his mouth.
Her cry was loud, desperate and tinged with pain as pleasure arrowed forcefully through her. Her back arched under the intensity of her delight. Cesare suckled harder, then relented to lick her burning flesh. Before she could draw breath, he repeated the action. Her fingers convulsed in his hair as pleasure consumed her.
Once again bliss beckoned and she rushed blindly towards it. But, just as she was about to dive into the abyss, he pulled back.
With a quick motion, he flipped her underneath him and knelt between her thighs. He pulled open a drawer and extracted a condom.
Watching him rip open the contraception sent a bold thought through her head. Rising to face him, she placed her hands on his. ‘Let me.’
Cesare’s eyes widened. ‘You’ve never done that before.’
‘I’ve had a long time to think about us, like this. Will you let me?’
He nodded and handed it over. That her offer pleased him and intensified the fire of arousal in his eyes only spurred her on.
She crawled on the bed until she was behind him. With an open-mouthed kiss between his shoulder blades that sent a fevered shudder through him, she took over the task. The powerful breadth of his shoulders meant she couldn’t see what she was doing, but her touch was enough.
Slowly, glorying in his potent, silky arousal, she slid the condom over his erection. Smooth, velvety skin veined with his thick blood surged underneath her fingers.
She bit the flesh she’d kissed moments before and felt her own fever rise as he trembled.
‘Tesoro, I fear your disappointment if you don’t cease this torture.’ His voice was pained, tinged with a desperation that matched her own.
Equally desperate for him, she completed her task quickly, but couldn’t resist a last caress of his hard flesh.
‘Per favore, I need you,’ he pleaded hoarsely.
Twisting around, he grabbed her and returned her to her original position.
Sure hands grasped her thighs and spread them wide. Her scent rose between them like a potent aphrodisiac. Cesare’s gaze dropped to her open sex and his eyes darkened to a burnished bronze.
Swallowing hard, he murmured, ‘I had forgotten how exquisitely beautiful you are down there.’
Sweet pleasure stole through her. Reaching up, she curled her hand into his smooth, hard chest. ‘I never forgot, for a single moment, how beautiful you are.’
To her he would always be a god among men, the powerful, captivating figure who had gripped her attention from the moment they’d met and had never let go, despite everything that had happened between them since.
He glided his fingers down her inner thighs, trailing a path of fire that threatened to ignite her very core. She bit her lip, fighting the haze that encroached, the promise of heaven suspended just out of reach. But this time she wanted
