got into bed.
‘Hello, husband,’ she said.
And this time when she said it Nico did not roll his eyes.
He turned off the light and lay beside her. ‘Are you awake?’ he said to the dark.
‘I’m awake,’ she said, and rolled to face him.
Have me now. Take me now, her eyes told him as they lay facing each other on their sides. Give me your untamed passion again.
Instead he spoke. ‘Life is peaceful with my wife—calm and without demands.’
Except his heart battered his chest as if he had run home from the hotel and his body was primed.
They faced each other and embraced the war that raged between them.
Her silent screams were for all of him, for Nico’s refusal to give anything other than the inches that now nudged her thigh. Aurora wanted his fire and his untamed passion, and she provoked and pushed for the same.
But instead he gave her a taste of slow love.
Just this one time, Nico said to himself. He would give in once and kiss her as he should have on her first time. Not hot, raw sex on a sofa, but deep, slow kisses in his bed.
And while Nico told himself he was giving Aurora the experience she had deserved back then, he was aware enough to know that he wanted it for himself too.
‘I should have been more tender then…’
Four years on from that night he answered the question she had asked the following morning, and told Aurora his regrets.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It was perfect just as it was.’
She was actually scared to know him as tender, but that was the kiss he now gave her. A slow kiss that sent her mind dizzy with little arrows of affection delivered by his velvet lips.
His clean, male sent made her ache for more—more of his body, more of his mouth—but she lingered a while in this bliss.
He kissed her slowly. His hand was warm on the back of her head and she almost fought him with her mouth, fought for him to kiss her harder.
Because a taste of his slow love was now a terrifying prospect. The game they had been playing was just a little too much for her heart to recover from.
He removed his mouth from hers.
She did not want him to stop. His mouth, tender like this, made her tremble, and his tongue, his lips caressing hers, demanded her pleasure. She let herself revel in it.
‘I should have seduced you,’ Nico said.
‘You did,’ Aurora breathed as she recalled that even with walls between them on that hot, sultry night, desire had coursed through her, just as it was rolling through her now. ‘You are.’
He slipped in his tongue and she tasted him again. He devoured her with his mouth and her hands shot to his head, just to feel his hair, just to hold his face so that she never had to separate from this bliss.
Their mouths touched and she found out how powerful his slow kiss could be. For she was not here in his dark bedroom in Rome, and she was not even thinking of that night in Silibri. She was in a place that was reserved on this earth just for them. A place that could be found whenever their mouths met.
He dragged his lips from hers, and then Aurora discovered that there were kisses she still did not know.
He took his hands from her head and turned her with a silent command, so she lay on her back as his mouth met her neck. And the slight suction he made on that sensitive flesh made her gasp.
‘Take me, Nico.’
She did not want to linger in this bliss. She did not want to know the tender pleasure of this Nico, for it would surely be safer not to know.
He licked her nipple, making generous wet circles. And she bit on her lip as he blew cool air there. Then moaned as he sucked hard. She felt her hips rise and his hand slip down.
‘I want you so badly, Aurora.’
‘Take me, then…’ she pleaded again.
‘I was too rough that night.’
‘No, no…’ she sobbed. ‘You weren’t.’
‘I should have been gentler for your first time.’
He kissed her stomach. She had always thought it too fat, yet she found she adored her own ripe flesh when it was loved by his mouth.
‘I should have tasted you…’ He moved down the bed so that his head was between her legs. ‘I should have cooled you with my mouth.’
‘Cooled me?’ she checked, for she could never have been cooled. And certainly not by what he did now.
‘Oh…’
His tongue made deep, slow strokes and he nibbled at places she did not think it right for him to do so, but her hands knotted in his hair and she let him show her bliss.
Nico was turned on by the humming noises she made, but she refused to call out his name. He could feel the tension building in her and the grip of her thighs on his head.
He sucked and he probed with his tongue and though sometimes he licked slowly he did not let up for a second.
He was relentless.
‘I—I’m…’ she gasped.
He knew.
For how could he not know when her tension was unleashed and she held on to a scream? How could he not know when he was drinking from her pulsing, tender place?
He pulled himself up over her.
Now he would take her—fast. Now this torture would be done. Aurora pleaded with him in her mind, and she knew she should never have made that wish at the Trevi Fountain.
To know his love even just once more would hurt later.
But when he slid into her…when he crushed her with his weight, and when she anticipated his rapid thrusts…she wrapped her legs round him, to join in and bring them both to the delicious end.
And yet his hands removed her legs and now he took her arms and held them above her head on the pillows as he moved onto his forearms.
‘Slow, boring love…’ he said.
Aurora heard the creak of the bed and the way his breathing sounded as he strove to hold on to his release.
‘Am I boring you Aurora?’
‘No…’ She no longer knew the rules of the game. For she was burning and melting at the same time.
He released her hands from the trap of his arms. Her fingers pressed
