“Bina.” Her name was a raspy groan that she felt under her fingers, and he lifted his big hands and closed hers in them. “Luca tells me he got you drunk.”
That was true, but she was glad. It felt good. She felt an ease with which she was unfamiliar. Lifting her eyes from his chest, she met his gaze and gasped. His eyes were hooded, the heat in them almost literal. She smiled. “He did, maybe. Maybe, though, I like it.”
She twisted her hands free of his tender hold and pushed them up, over his shoulders, then around his neck. He was so tall, much taller than her own five feet, seven inches. Even on her tiptoes—her foot should have hurt, but it didn’t—she couldn’t reach his mouth. So she laced her hands on the back of his neck and pulled him down.
Again he said her name—whispered, like a prayer—but he didn’t resist the pressure of her hands. Instead, his arms went around her waist. His strong arms left a path of fire on her bare skin, and when their mouths came together, he crushed her body to his. They were nearly nude, only in swim clothes, and she felt the rough caress of his whole body—his muscled torso, his long, powerful arms crossed around her waist and his hands clutching her sides, his beard against her face, his tongue in her mouth.
He’d surrounded her, encompassed her, and her blood felt like lava moving through her body, heating her sinews to liquid. Her core ached with a need so strong it was pain. She moaned, and the sound disappeared into his mouth and seemed to fuel his own need. His grip on her tightened, and his mouth and tongue searched more deeply. Sabina was having trouble keeping up.
She was not an experienced kisser. Beyond the publicly expected pecks, James did not kiss on the mouth. He’d kissed her sometimes during the whirlwind months of their courtship, but not since. Their sex had not ever been an act of intimacy. She’d been a virgin when they’d married, and thus she did not know any other kind. As a whole, her experiences with sex were outside the bounds, she was sure, of normalcy. She could recognize and name a whole host of different kinds of ‘toys’—few of which she’d ever found playful—but she was not sure of the steps for the dance she was doing now with Carlo. She was, then, following her instincts, the same instincts that helped her navigate social conversations. Her instincts and, a little, his lead.
But her instincts were taking the lead here in Carmen’s pretty kitchen. She’d touched him because she wanted to, without thinking more about it. She’d kissed him for the same reason, because she wanted it, and he was there, and she knew he wanted it, too.
What she knew for an absolute certainty was that this wild embrace was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She could feel her body moving without need of her will, rocking against him, using his body to soothe the ache between her legs. She was too short to reach the thick, hard shaft that pressed against her belly, so she hooked her arms around his neck and climbed him. When her core found that hardness, she moaned again and clutched him as tightly as she could, wrapping her legs around him.
All of this was new, none of this was anything she’d ever done, but it felt right, natural. Divine.
He grunted his surprise and caught her ass in his hands as if by reflex, then broke free of their kiss. Mourning the loss of him immediately, she whimpered and, with her eyes still closed, sought his mouth again.
He pulled away, his breath labored and hot on her face. “Bina. Look at me.”
She did. His expression was raw and feral, but also deeply conflicted. He was going to stop, to set her down and back away. She could feel it. He was too much, she thought, a gentleman. At this moment, he was.
“Carlo, no. Please. Never have I felt like this. I don’t want it to stop. I want to feel this. You.” Following instinct and her own need, she flexed in his arms, drawing her core along his erection, only her bathing suit and his shorts between them. His eyes closed, and he pulled in a deep, audible breath.
“Bina, we can’t. Not yet.”
She leaned forward and put her mouth on the taut skin of his throat. He tasted salty and warm, and she suckled his skin, feeling his pulse beating erratically against her tongue. When he groaned, the sound vibrated in her mouth and gave her gooseflesh everywhere.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck.” He turned his head and pushed her back so he could claim her mouth again, and she felt him then walking. She hoped he was headed toward a bed. Oh, Lord, how she hoped.
A throat cleared near the front door, the sound deeply masculine, and they froze exactly as they were.