A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [20]
What she did want was clear in her eyes, written deep in the clouded pools of her irises, burning in the apprehensive but unwavering gaze she turned on his dark, watchful face.
Gio drew in a long, deep, faintly ragged breath and nodded slowly. And when he moved it was to hold out his arm, his hand slightly curved to beckon her to him.
‘Then come here,’ he said sharply, huskily, the musical intonation of his accent deepening on each word he spoke. ‘Come here to me, belleza, and let’s finish what we’ve started.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘COME here…and let’s finish what we’ve started.’
Gio found that his words echoed inside his head as he watched Terrie lever herself up off the bed and then stand, hesitating, clearly undecided whether to obey him or not.
Finish what we’ve started.
What had they started? And, more to the point, how was it going to end? Was he going to be able to leave it as the one-night stand he had planned on, the ‘fun’ that Terrie had indicated she wanted? He didn’t know and quite frankly at this moment he simply didn’t care.
Tomorrow morning he might be able to walk away without a backward glance. He might be happy to say goodbye and let her go out of his life without a second thought; he didn’t know. The only certainty in his mind was that now he couldn’t do any such thing. He couldn’t leave not having made love to this woman. He couldn’t go without having known the full experience of sleeping with her, having her, of seeing whether the reality of her lived up to the fantasy, the promise, the hunger that her kisses had awoken in him.
After two long years of shutting away his sexual feelings, keeping them out of his life with a blockade of loneliness and working until he dropped from sheer exhaustion, it now seemed that the dam had been breached. The barriers were down once and for all and the floodtide of sensations could not be held back. Instead it was flowing fierce and wild and free, sweeping aside all restraint, all trace of anything like thought or hesitation or self-control.
He wanted this tonight; and for tonight at least he was going to have it.
‘Teresa?’
She would have travelled far further and overcome far greater obstacles if it meant that she could hear him use her name in that soft, that tender way. But even so, the short distance across the deep blue carpet to where Gio stood, still with his hand outstretched, seemed to take an age. Forever.
She could hardly make her feet move. Her legs had no strength at all beneath her, and she could only step hesitantly and uncertainly, her eyes fixed on his face.
But in his face she found her strength. In those deep, dark eyes, so intently fixed on her, was all the encouragement she needed. He was there for her, and that was all that mattered, all that she wanted.
This was just a beginning. It was stepping out into the unknown, and that needed courage. She didn’t know what might happen days down the line; she only knew that for now she had to close her eyes and jump, and take it on trust that he wouldn’t let her fall.
And as it had been in the lift, so now his arms were there, ready and waiting for her. They gathered her close, collected her in, and drew her up to him. And when she lifted her face to him his mouth came down on hers, hard and hot and hungry and passionate. It crushed her own mouth open, parting it to the sweep of his tongue, the deepening of the caress.
And she gave herself up to that caress openly and willingly, all trace of hesitation gone, all fear swept aside in the floodtide of passionate hunger that took possession of her. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t feel enough of him pressed up against her, her senses swooning in intoxication as she inhaled the clean, potent scent of his body and felt its heat surround her.
Hard hands tangled in her hair, twisting the fine blonde strands around the long, tanned fingers, holding her head exactly where he wanted it so that he could kiss her in just the way that he wanted. And what he wanted was what she wanted too. All that