back to the ground, Raphael was there to catch her with his warmth, his endearments and praises, with his arms.
Desperate to keep touching him, desperate to keep the connection even as those powerful tremors in her lower belly ebbed, Pia pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen forward onto his forehead. Realizing the possessiveness of the action, she stilled.
“Touch me, bella. Anywhere you want.”
With a sigh, Pia greedily ran her fingers over his taut form.
He prowled over her on all fours and she reveled in the feral hunger stamped over every tight muscle, every jutting bone. She wanted to shatter his control. She wanted him as delirious with pleasure and need as she was. She slid her questing fingers over the rough silk of his bare back, loving the grooved line of his spine. He smiled against her neck, interrupting the kiss he’d been pressing there.
Dark eyes held hers captive, a stark honesty to them. “You wear everything on your face, you tell me in beautiful, honest words what I do to you, your body sings for me when I so much as brush the tip of my finger against it...” Slowly, as if he were a jungle cat, he shed his pants and boxers.
How had he known what she had needed to hear? How did he know that she wanted to please him, if it was the last thing she ever did?
He brought his body down over hers until they were flush from shoulder to thigh to foot.
Pia grasped his back with both hands, drowning in a surfeit of sensations—his angular hips cradling hers, muscular thighs pushing her into the bed, his hands kneading hips and cupping her buttocks. “Do you see how desperately I need you?”
In reply, she slid her hands to his hips. Hard muscles, velvet rough skin, hair-sprinkled limbs so different from her own and yet so perfectly complementary and then there was a litany of Italian from his mouth as she touched and stroked everything. She kneaded his buttocks shamelessly, traced his flank with questing fingers, touched and stroked every inch of tightly honed muscle.
And with each innocent touch of hers, he turned harder, and tighter, his rock-hard erection swelling in the groove of her thighs. The hard, velvet length, the sheer size of him made her mouth dry.
Her heart picked up pace as he kissed the rim of her ear and whispered, “Spread your legs for me, Pia.”
Head bowed into his chest, Pia did. A jolt of sensation spread outward when he rubbed his shaft along her sex. Her breathing hitched to a faster rhythm and soon Raphael’s joined hers. His one hand clasped both of hers above her head while with his other hand, he rubbed himself in her wetness.
“You’re so perfect for me, Pia.” Another slide, another shiver. Another sigh from her mouth. “As if you were made for me.”
Slow shivers built in her spine at the slick slide of him against her. Even oversensitized from her climax, a whisper of sensation pooled again at her sex. And then, suddenly, he was inside her in a hard yet somehow smooth, unsuspecting movement.
Her spine bucking, Pia gasped at the invasion. Nails digging into his shoulders, she tried to buck him off but he remained lodged inside her.
It was as if there was a hot poker inside her. His body incredibly rigid, his muscles tense, Raphael whispered words against her temple, her eyes, her nose. Fervent promises to make it better, feverish endearments as if he couldn’t bear to hurt her. “Look at me, cara mia. I promise you the worst is done.”
Pia opened her eyes, terrified of showing him what she was feeling. Of making him think she didn’t want this, didn’t want him. But such a warm smile dawned in his eyes that it drove away her misgivings. “You’re the science teacher, si?”
Her sex spasmed as if to remind her and he sank in a little more. “I’m sorry, Raphael. I... I didn’t mean to...”
“No sorries between us, Pia. Not when I’ve to hurt you a little more before I can give you pleasure.”
Tiny beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. His skin was like damp velvet under her fingers. He looked as if he was hewn from some rough stone, so stark were the bones of his face. He was exercising immense control, Pia realized, and felt like a big coward. “I don’t care how much it hurts, please move.”
“Kiss me, cara mia. Like you mean it,” he added with a taunt.
Unclenching her fists, Pia took his mouth in a soft kiss. Hands in his hair, she pulled him down, angling his mouth the way she wanted it. It was the first time he let her drive a kiss between them. Liking the way he growled under her touch, Pia slid her tongue inside his mouth in a silky sweep that made him groan deep in his throat.
She peppered his jaw with urgent kisses, licked his neck like a cat, and then dug her teeth into the groove of his shoulder. A timely epithet flew from his mouth even as his hip jerked, sending sensation spiraling down her spine.
And just like that, slowly, her body got used to his invasion inside of her. She softened and stretched around him, a slow pulse of pleasure spiraling out from there. When he moved within her in soft, slow strokes, it was as if there was a poem of pleasure being written inside her. As if she were being taken apart and remade again within Raphael’s hands.
Trusting some unknown instincts, Pia wrapped her legs around his back and he groaned his pleasure.
She’d always wondered at the raw intimacy, at the lack of inhibition that had to go hand in hand with sex, had always cringed at revealing herself like that. Yet nothing in the world felt more natural than being beneath Raphael, than meeting his eyes and sharing the pregnant moment, nothing more perfect than the sweaty shift and slide of their bodies against each other with pleasure billowing in their wake.
His hands under her buttocks, he lifted her until every hard stroke rubbed against her clitoris. Soon, the pressure built again until Pia came in a cataclysm of pleasure.
And he watched her, every nuance in her face, as if he owned her. With an intensity that sent aftershocks through her pelvis.
“You feel like heaven, tesoro, and I have to move,” he said in apology.
Pia touched her fingers to his forehead, and the lock of hair that was always falling down. “I’m yours, Raphael,” she whispered, her heart overflowing.
Her name on his lips, her body held down tight, Raphael thrust faster and deeper inside her. She felt his spine lock. With a guttural cry that she’d forever remember, he spent himself inside her.
With his hands tight on her hips, his heavy weight pressing onto her, her body felt as if it was being thrown around by a storm. Her breathing matching his rough rhythm, Pia couldn’t let go of him.
Morning light was beginning to seep in through the curtains, bathing their bodies in an orange glow. He was hard and heavy over her, but deliciously so. Hadn’t she heard some of her colleagues whisper that men always pulled away after they were done? That they didn’t like clingy women?
She very much wanted to cling to Raphael, to breathe in the musky scent they made together, to soak in the wonderful warmth of his body. But she didn’t want him to think she was getting all gooey and sentimental over what they had done,even though it was exactly what she was feeling.
Her heart dipped as he moved away from her. She scrunched her eyes tight and felt his eyes on her back. The sheets slithered around her, and she heard his soft tread
