Her eyes had adjusted to the subdued lights, which seemed to have been calibrated to highlight every chiseled plane of his body, every honed groove, every gleaming, silky hair accentuating each line and bulge of power. He’d already been beyond unfair when clothed. Almost naked like this…the injustice was unspeakable.
“You like?”
He’d asked her that her yesterday. Then, he’d meant the masterpiece nature and his domain combined had painted.
He was asking about another work of divine art and human perseverance here. Himself.
She swallowed, gave him the same answer. It still applied, after all. “I’m alive, am I not? I have to like.”
His lips spread even as he fully did. “Then…help yourself.”
Chapter Six
Clarissa didn’t know where to start helping herself.
At the jut of his cheekbones, the slope of his forehead, the power of his jaw? Or should she start at the command of his brow, work down the slash of his nose to the hypnosis of that mouth that turned her inside out no matter what it said or did?
Maybe she should bypass his face for now. Take the unprecedented chance to explore his exposed perfection.
But there her choices were even more abundant. Should she start at his shoulders? Which part would she start with? That sculpted clavicle or those ripped deltoids? At his chest? At the daunting expanse of his pectorals where they tapered into the effortless strength-producing bulges of his biceps, or where they were sharply demarcated from his marble-hard six-pack? Or should she start with the raven silk hair that had the exact formation and density to emphasize each muscular mass? There was nothing but more to marvel at along every inch of the taut, polished skin encasing him in an amalgam of living, golden bronze.
And that was just the part that was exposed. The sheets hid more. She felt almost sorry she hadn’t been in any condition to stop and take stock of his below-waistline assets before.
“Let me help you help yourself,” he whispered.
Still on his back, seemingly relaxed now, he reached out languidly, took both her hands, brought them to his body.
She moaned at the spike of sensation as he flattened one of her palms against his chest, over his heart, the other low on his abdomen, an inch above the sheets heaped around his hips and thighs.
“Feel that?” She knew he meant the high-voltage current it seemed his flesh was generating. She felt electrocuted and supercharged at once. She nodded. “Your touch paralyzes me with too much sensation, yet makes me feel I can leap buildings.”
Just what she felt! She nodded again, more eager. His eyes were slits of passion as he started moving her hands over him, as if he were a master artist, painting an impressionist creation with broad strokes at times, with short flicks and tantalizing dabs at others. Then he brought one of her hands to his face, held it there with both of his, relinquishing the other. He showed her what to do before taking it to his mouth. He alternated between massaging its fleshy parts with nibbles to burying kisses along her palm’s lines, to flicking his tongue at the junctures of her fingers, to sucking on each one as his eyes showed her he’d do all that to her everywhere else. Sensations and imaginings sent a current of arousal flowing through her, lodging in her womb.
When her hands resisted him, started to linger where they pleased, to absorb the details she’d longed to touch, he took his hands away, lay back, surrendering to her impending exploration.
Her first totally voluntary action was to cup his face, as she’d dreamed of doing for so long. As long as she could remember, it seemed. She met his eyes as she feathered her thumbs in the hollows beneath the arch of his cheekbones, glided to and fro across the sculpture of his lips, smoothing the wings of his eyebrows before caressing his heavy-with-desire lids shut.
She put her lips to each, felt him tense with every tickle of hot breath. “I did that before, to make you open your eyes, to take you away from the nightmare. Now I want you to savor this, keep your eyes closed, relax.” His eyes snapped open instead, all intention of letting her explore him evaporating as he took her by the waist, by the head, tried to bring her lips to his. She resisted, burying her lips at the corner of his mouth as he’d done to her last night. “Let me, Ferruccio. I’ve wanted to touch you for so long.”
He let her go, spread himself for her to take of him what she would. “Si, do everything to me, everything you want or have ever fantasized about. There are no limits, just freedom, pleasure.”
She knew what her real problem was. Not that she didn’t know how to help herself. But that she couldn’t help herself.
She rubbed her aching breasts against the malleable steel of his chest, on her way to his lips. She paused to study how their chiseled planes were severe and uncompromising, how the bottom one filled into the essence of sensuality. She took it in both of hers, closing her eyes to focus on the tactile exploration, marveling at its strength and softness, its heat and moistness, that magnificent taste that was him.
His body buzzed with tension as her teeth trod her lips’ path, as she nudged his lips apart with her tongue and plunged inside in search of more of that addictive taste. She felt him struggle not to grab her head and crash her mouth on his and take over. She almost wanted him to. Almost. She wanted to explore him more.
And she did. All the treasures she’d counted, she touched and tested and tasted. They were even more incredible when feasted on with all the senses.
She was running the tip of her tongue along the grooves separating his six-pack, wondering how was it possible for flesh to be so hard, so hot, to vibrate like that, when he groaned.
“Now do what you want to do most.”
She obeyed, took hold of his sheet, and with heart-thudding slowness, pulled it off him. And stared.
The sheet hadn’t been heaped. That height had been him. And then there was his girth, his shape.
She’d felt him last night, through their clothes, had thought he was as unique there as everywhere else. Again imagination fell way short of reality. Her mouth watered, her hands stung.
“Feel me, Clarissa,” he urged, his eyes as glazed as hers. “Enjoy me, own me. Show me how good it feels to touch me, how alive it makes you feel to know you do this to me.”
She was melting with need. But the enormity of what she wanted to do, what he was coaxing and commanding her to do, still overwhelmed her. She felt too inexperienced to live. Sure, she knew the mechanics. But only theoretically. She’d never touched a man. Not like this, not in any other way.