It was all that Amber could manage, the unformed sound catching in her throat as he came down on top of her, his mouth taking hers again, hands roaming over her body, seeking, stroking, finding pleasure spots she had forgotten existed, ones she could have sworn that even she hadn’t known about before. Excitement rushed through her, fizzing, burning, stinging like an electric current, making her tug hard at his shirt, wrench the buttons from their fastenings.
‘I’m wearing too many clothes…’ It was a moan of complaint, of protest, and she felt rather than heard the dark laughter that shook his long body.
‘Too many clothes, perhaps,’ he told her huskily, ‘but then again, I think I like it. I like this amazing contraption you’re wearing—love the way it pushes your breasts out—everything on display for my eyes…’
They burned into her skin, his gaze almost a physical touch in itself.
‘My hands…’
Hot fingers stroked the exposed pale flesh of her breasts, curving over them, cupping them above and then below, lifting them even higher.
‘And my mouth…’
Suiting action to the words, he bent to the soft skin, letting first his lips, then his tongue slide over her quivering breasts, finally letting his teeth graze the delicate curves, making her moan aloud in excitement.
His hands were at her sides, moving over the boned bodice, shaping the narrow curve of her waist. Then up again, his touch growing heavier, more urgent, hard fingers slipping into the lacy cups, finding her swollen nipples, rolling them between a forefinger and thumb.
‘Guido…!’
His name was a gasp of shock, a sound of delight, a moan of encouragement all in one. ‘You like that, mia bellezza?’
Guido punctuated the words with hot kisses over the curve of one breast and then the other, then back again.
‘You want more?’
‘Oh, yes…yes…I want…I want you.’
‘Soon, carissima, soon.’
Another kiss took her yearning mouth, giving her something of what she needed and yet promising so much more that it fed her hunger even as it appeased it.
‘First…’
Hooking his thumbs over the lacy edge of the white silk basque, he pulled it down, exposing her breasts to his arousing touch and his even more exciting mouth. Moaning aloud again, Amber moved her head restlessly on the fine cotton of the pillows, arching her back, pressing herself against his mouth so that the sensations were increased, making her head spin with pleasure.
But she didn’t just want to feel. She wanted to touch, to match him caress for caress. She wanted to know the heat and softness of his skin, to have the power of his muscles, the hardness of bone under her fingertips.
‘Too many clothes…’ she muttered again complainingly, her hand clutching at his shirt, tugging, twisting, trying to wrench it from him.
‘Impaziente…’ Guido muttered, laughter once again threading through his voice.
But he helped her out, shrugging off the loosened shirt, and somehow still managing to concentrate his attention on the tightened, aching breasts he had exposed. The feel of his hot skin, the bunched muscles, made Amber sigh with delight and she let her hands roam where they could. Under her caresses, Guido’s spine arched, burning eyes closed.
‘Talking of too many clothes…these have to go.’
Through the heated delirium that filled her head, Amber barely noticed the feel of his strong fingers closing over the fine lace that was her only covering at the most intimate spot between her thighs. There was a swift, hard tug, the sound of material ripping and her eyes opened wide in shock at the realisation of what had happened.
‘Guido…’
But Guido showed no sign of any sense of guilt, or even concern as he smiled down into her stunned face and kissed the stunned protest from her lips as he tossed the tattered remnants of her knickers carelessly to one side.
‘I’ll buy you a dozen more—a hundred…’ he promised against her mouth. ‘Besides, they were in my way.’
To prove his point, he trailed his knowing hand down her body, following the lines of one of the boned strips that stiffened the corset to the point where it ended just on her waist. From there he let it wander even lower, tracing a path of fire through the curls that hid her femininity, slipping between her thighs, easing them apart. With practised ease he found the tiny, swollen spot that was burning with a hungry need for just this moment and stroked a soft caress over its throbbing tip.
With her body already ablaze with longing as a result of his enticing attentions elsewhere, that single touch was enough to have Amber convulsing underneath him, crying out his name in the heat of her need.
‘Guido—Guido—please…’
Her vision was hazed with passion but she caught the quick flashing smile that showed his delight at her response, the triumph he didn’t try to hide.
‘I knew it would be this way…Knew how it would be between us…’
Knew…
Just for a second, his muttered satisfaction stilled Amber, as a cold shaft of something uncomfortable and disturbing almost but not quite reached through to Amber’s rational mind. But just as a flicker of awareness of something she wanted to resist, to armour herself against, threatened to pierce the heated haze of delight, Guido stroked her again, his touch knowing, tormenting, even more arousing than before. Instantly, the flames of passion swept over her, taking with her that momentary doubt as she clung to him, melting into him, not knowing where she ended and he began.
Long, powerful legs edged between her own, easing them apart. She felt the strength of muscle even through the delicate covering of the stockings she still wore, the fine material of his trousers. She heard her blood thunder in her veins as the heated hardness of him nudged against the sensitised core of her body.
‘You’re mine,’ he whispered in her ear, rough and thick and disturbingly raw. ‘Mine. You always have been and you always will. This is how it was in the past, how it is and how it will be in the future. Si? Si?’
‘Yes…’
It was all that Amber could manage. All she could force from her, dry mouth, her parched throat. The heat of her need seemed to be burning her up, shrivelling her brain in its fire.
‘Oh, yes…’
She didn’t want to think—didn’t want him to wait. Even the seconds of hesitation that he kept her waiting ticked in an agony of frustration. Impatiently she moved, shifting underneath him, bringing her hips up slightly, opening herself to him even more.
‘Ah, yes, belleza…’
Firm hands clamped on her hips, hard fingers digging into the swell of her buttocks. In one smooth, powerful movement, he raised her slightly, positioned himself in just the right spot and thrust, hard
