fully protected here by the breadth of his shoulders and the height of his body. They blocked her from view should anyone stagger down the street or come looking for privacy of their own.
She should have known such a master of the art would not resort to a base, rushed, dark-alley coupling, or be carried away by the heat of the moment and his own need. She should have been ready. The kisses to her neck, to her throat, should have primed her, warned her that here in the privacy of the dark and the quiet of the night, the music and noise of the festivities far behind them, these moments would be different than the frenzied excitement in the piazza. But still, the kiss took her unawares.
This kiss was a long, languorous exploration of her, his tongue probing and tasting, his mouth opening to encourage her to do the same, and she did. She tasted the remnants of rich wine on his tongue, smelled the last vestiges of his morning toilette beneath the sweat of the day, the scents of a man. Wherever he’d come from, he’d come on horseback. The smells of leather and horse were evident too, on his skin, and most pleasantly so. She preferred a man smell like a man than a flower garden. A man’s scent should above all be an honest representation of him.
As should his body. There was honesty aplenty in that dark alcove. His want was in evidence, his erection hard at her stomach where their bodies met. He was not alone in that evidence, only more obvious. There was wetness at her core, an ache that rose in her, demanding to be assuaged. He nipped at her lip, tugging at it gently, and she moaned, her body pressing into his, her hips grinding in suggestion against his.
Archer groaned his response into her mouth, his kiss becoming possessive, the slow tempo between them quickening, turning primal. His hands bunched the folds of her skirts, pushing them up. ‘Let me lift you.’ The command was hoarse with need.
His hands slid under her, cupping her buttocks and hefting her to him, her legs wrapping around his waist as he balanced her between himself and the wall. Her skirts fell back, her private flesh bare against him. She felt the hardness of him through the barrier of his trousers, the contact erotic, and she moved on him in instinctive response.
She was rewarded with a fierce nip at her ear and the feel of the strong muscles that held her, trembling. ‘You will have me spilling like a green boy.’ The rasped warning was both caution and accolade and it spurred her on. The heat and frenzy was returning, stoked to life once more. Her hips sought him again, but he had other ideas, better ideas.
He shifted his weight, his hand finding the core of her, his palm pressing against her mons until she cried out in pleasurable frustration. She was far beyond it being enough. But he knew. ‘I can make it better,’ he promised against her throat, his fingers parting her folds. His breath hitched as he felt her wetness, found the tiny bean of her pleasure and began to stroke. Her pleasure was exciting for him, she realised. The knowledge that her delight roused him was intoxicating, heady, and she gave herself over to it, fuelling them both, driving them both towards the cliff of madness. She reached for him, her hand taking him through his trousers as he stroked her. Dio caro! The man was big, and long and, oh, so deliciously hard.
Elisabeta worked the fall of his trousers open. The best way to tell him what she wanted was to show him. Her hand found the naked length of him, and he gave a low, guttural groan. ‘You will kill me yet, Elisabeta.’ Her name was a groan on his lips, his body straining.
‘Take me,’ she whispered fiercely at his ear. She too had become primal in these moments. She had never been so lost in the madness of lovemaking before, had never been this far and yet something more loomed on the horizon of this pleasure. All reserve, all rational thought had been stripped away by his hands, his mouth.
‘Yes,’ Archer rasped and the response was immediate; the slide of his body into hers. She was tight but ready, the slickness of her tunnel easing his way until he was fully within her. There was the glorious sensation of stretching, accommodating. Then he began to move, and she with him, her hips matching the thrusting rhythm of his body, slowly at first, the pace growing with their intensity.
Moans and gasps became the sum of her vocabulary, his body the sum of her world. She muffled those gasps against the fabric of his shirt and still he brought them closer and closer to the undefinable something that lay just over the edge of madness. All she had to do was...
‘Let go, Elisabeta,’ came the hoarse command. ‘Let yourself go, we are nearly there.’ The words came in pants and broken fragments, but that he had any power of speech at all was miraculous to her—she had none. He gave a final thrust, and she let the madness take her entirely. She was over the cliff, claiming pleasure in its fullness, her heart pounding, her pulse racing, and Archer was there too, his own heart pounding hard against hers, proof of his efforts spilling against her thighs, a hot reminder of glorious life.
She rested her head against the brick of the wall, Archer’s head on her shoulder, his own shoulders heaving from his exertions. Her hands were in his hair, absently stroking, soothing. Her mind was still in an incoherent fog where thought came in incomplete scraps. What did she know of such things? She’d known nothing of this pleasure before tonight, only that it hypothetically existed. How was she to have known it would be so bone-shattering? Her experience was limited to the adolescent skills of a fumbling but well-intentioned virgin. Later, her marriage bed had known the comfort that comes with familiarity, but never this overwhelming pleasure that left her drugged; sapped and satisfied all at once.
Curiosity began to ignite as reality slowly settled on her. It made one wonder. If this man’s lovemaking could be incredible up against a wall in a dark alcove of a city street, what would it be like in a feather bed? What would it be like with a woman he knew or perhaps even truly loved?
No, she couldn’t let her mind travel that direction, not even under the excuse of this pleasurable fog. To know the answer to such a fantasy meant knowing him, learning his last name, his history, his people. She was not looking for that. She could not have that, it was far too much temptation. Her uncle had promised her to another. What a cruel temptation it would be to know he was out there in the world somewhere and to have the tools to find him, while being married to the priore’s gouty relative. There was only hurt down that path, and shame.
The thought of shame sparked too the reality of what she’d done. For all of the nuances he’d provided with his laughter, his touch, his sexy knowing mouth, his intimate possession of her body, for all that he’d never made her feel that this was a cheap encounter or she was nothing more than a troia, there was no disguising what this was: sex in an alley with a stranger. Extraordinarily good sex, apparently, and with a very handsome stranger, but adjectives didn’t change the blunt truth. She’d set out to act scandalously and she had.
Archer’s head moved against her shoulder and he set her down slowly, as if warning her legs they would need to stand on their own. He moved away from her long enough to restore his trousers. In the dimness, he was even more attractive after sex than he was before, if that was possible. His hair fell rakishly in his face as he concentrated on his clothes, his hands sure and competent in their tasks. She’d never found a man’s hands sexy before, but even in the dark, his hands carried a certain quality to them, she’d thought as much when they’d danced and eaten. Those moments in the piazza seemed a lifetime ago.
‘Elisabeta.’ His voice was soft in the darkness, his face close to hers, his eyes half-shut. One arm bracketed her as he leaned against the wall. His lips touched hers in a light brushing, not a full kiss. He was formulating ideas, deciding what happened next. She couldn’t allow that. She gathered her reserves.
‘Archer,’ she answered in equally soft tones, her hand gently cupping the firm line of his jaw. She wanted to touch him until the last, to give her body every chance to remember him. ‘I have to go.’ With that, she ducked under his arm and ran into
